Re: Is the Minimize button still useful with gnome-shell ?

[Rovanion Luckey <rovanion luckey gmail com>]

Now this thread really contains two different discussions:

The one about what could be done with the minimize button and the functionality around it.

And so the discussion around adding additional window management buttons. Buttons, or one button triggering a submenu, that enables the user to kick a window to another workspace.


On the topic of the minimize function: When I have let users who have never seen the gnome shell before use the shell the minimization functionality is something that often confuses the user. Because the window appears as if it was closed, it simply vanished into nothingness.

If the current minimization functionality is kept, that the window goes into the activities pane(paradox because it's already there but), there has to be some sort of indication that it went there. A simple animation with the window fading into the upper left corner would do. In the activities pane there should also be some sort of indication that "this window is minimized", some graying out or a change in opacity.

The addition of window managementbuttons is something that I feel would ease the use of the shell quite the bit for two reasonns. The first being that I as a user simply can kick over that chat window to the right when it pops up on my screen in the middle of me typing an essay. The second reason being that I don't have to do any context switching to kick away that window. It doesn't have to be a disaster for my focus that a new window appears on my screen, I don't have to do the zooming in and out. 
And if it so happens that while doing research for my essay find something interesting to read at another time, I can just click that window button to shove away the page no another workspace.


-- 
www.twitter.com/Rovanion