Re: [Usability] Behavior of Minimizing Windows Violates Mental Model

["appi2012 gmail com" <appi2012 gmail com>]

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 7:34 PM, Sean Brady <sbrady gtfservices com> wrote:

The taskbar has been tabled, repeatedly.  I used to be a proponent of such an animal.  After some time with Gnome Shell, I have changed my mind, and now agree with the dev team- no taskbar, ever.

I personally think that minimizing windows works just fine the way it is.  You see the minimized window in the overview.  As you should.  If you want to use it, click on it.  You can take a peek at it with the zoom in the overview.  Or you can ignore it.  When you leave the overview, it isn't visible.  I don't see how that violates any mental model at all.

I understand that the system can be used without a taskbar. However, this new method should be as effective as the current if it is to be considered an improvement rather than a regression.

What do I want to do with window management?

In one phrase, i want to simply be able to quickly go from one window to another related one, without getting distracted.

• Gnome Shell's dynamic workspaces allow related windows to be grouped together. This is an improvement.
• Often, related windows look similar, but have different titles (e.g, two similar documents). Especially since the windows are mainly shown by their content, and not by their title. However, the new mockups emphasize the tile more, so this should be fixed soon.
• I want to be able to quickly find out where my window is, and easily switch to it. A taskbar shows the window at a constant position, so I soon remember where to move my mouse to switch for it. However, Gnome-shell's expose view changes the location of the window everytime the number of windows is changed. This forces me to actively look for the window I want to switch to, rather than clicking the same location for the same window. You might suggest I could Alt-Tab, but Alt-tab's layout also changes based on recency, so it once again forces one to look for the location of a window.
• Gnome shell's overview has its benefits. It's a great way of, obviously, seeing an overview of what I'm doing at the moment. However, it is very distracting to always show this for a simple window switch. Instead of keeping me focused on the task I'm doing, it literally throws my windows around. If you were looking for a section inside a binder, you would simply find the tab the document is in, and move to that section. What you wouldn't do is take out every document in your binder and arrange it in a grid, and then pick from them. To me, the overview is great for organizing windows, but for simple window switching, there should be a simple way that isn't like Taz came through your desktop and threw your windows around (albeit in an organized fashion ;) ).

Overall, Gnome-Shell has added many features that significantly ease the workflow of the user. However, these features need not come at the expense of the basic features that facilitate the workflow, like the taskbar.

The taskbar is a part of most other major desktop environments, and for good reason. It is a great tool for managing windows. Be it a panel, a dock, a panel/dock (Unity's sidebar, Win7 superbar), it has the same purpose.

Furthermore, the fact that it comes up on this mailing list every month, with active users of gnome-shell in favor of it, should show that this is clearly a feature that users want.

If this feature, which has both demand and a positive effect, was hard to implement, I would argue that the developers should focus on making the rest of Gnome-shell more polished, and hold off on making such a feature. However, simply showing the overview's new sidebar (AppWell?) would solve all these problems, even if it is on intellihide. Therefore, a taskbar should be part of Gnome Shell.

I've explained my reasoning behind why a taskbar should be part of Gnome shell. Yet the developers seem to disagree, so I ask, why not? (No, "There is no need" is not a valid response ;) )

Just my 2 cents (maybe more - sorry for the long post)