Re: Just show me my window

[hills <hills o2 pl>]

2010/1/6 Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>:
> How does this relate to the design of GNOME Shell? How does this
> translate into design?

Thank you for your comments. Sorry for not being as lucid as I wanted to be.

To make it clear I will focus on my fundamental argument:
   1) Application Well,
   2) Workspace in Activities Overview,
   3) Application Switcher
contains the same thing: currently running applications.

That is why Application Well and Application Switcher are unnecessary and all
they functions should be taken by Workspace in Activities Overview.
Here are some
details how to do this:

1) Workspace in Activities Overview should display currently running
   applications along with non-running applications (like in Application Well).
   Users could just *switch* between applications and do not care about they
   state (running/non-running).

   Here is my *initial* mockup on how to understand this idea (please change
   filename extension to .svg if you can not open this file as image):
   http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-shell-list/2009-December/binJISmcpCeNx.bin

   In current Shell design non-running application are not out of context: in
   Application Well. But should be on Workspace. When user click on non-running
   application, he/she just change application state (non-running -> running).
   This could be indicated by, for example, color of window border. There is no
   need to have two different context: Application Well and Workspace since
   Workspace can do the job alone.

2) Alt+Tab should not show another unnecessary widget: Application Switcher.
   Alt+Tab should bring Workspace in Activities Overview, show only running
   application and switch between them. This way there is one consistent method
   for applications browsing, no need for another widget.

Recent documents should be presented in similar way as windows of running
application in Activities Overview. This could bring excellent experience to
users if they could browse they recent documents on full screen, scrolling,
zooming and so on. This could be done, for example, like this:
http://www.netbooknews.it/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/netbooknews-it-ubuntu-moblin-dell-media.png

This way all left black panel in Overview Activities seems to be unnecessary,
just like zooming out the whole Workspace instead of only windows.

In my point of view, the main GNOME Shell duty is: show me this window,
regardless of whether it is running/non-running application, document on my hard
drive, Web page on remote server etc. There is no need for three completely
different contexts to do this one thing, so Application Well and Application
Switcher could be incorporated into Workspace in Overview Activities.

I am curious about your arguments against my *one consistent way to do things*.
Thank you in advance.