Re: Thumbs up!

["Jasper St. Pierre" <jstpierre mecheye net>]

On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 11:42 PM, Bojan Smojver <bojan rexursive com> wrote:

On Tue, 2011-04-26 at 23:38 +1000, Bojan Smojver wrote:

> Gnome 3 should have applications button on the left of the panel
> (which  should be kept on top, like now, with an option to disappear
> for folks who like that) that opens dash ribbon and other app
> icons/menu/search below. Workspace switcher should be next to it, but
> it should be enhanced so that  a click to current space opens a ribbon
> of workspaces where windows can be  moved around from space to space
> etc. Workspaces should be static. Smart  taskbar (similar to W7 or
> using some new ideas) could be next to that. Expose should be
> available on request.

And so that this doesn't just end in some kind of perceived whining on
my end, I prepared some rough, rough mockups of what I mean. All IMHO.
Or maybe IMNSHO. :-)

Panel should look like this:

http://bojan.fedorapeople.org/gnome3/panel.png

To open a new application, one (surprisingly) clicks on Applications.
The following is displayed (or possibly overlaid over windows on the
current workspace, which are dimmed deep into into background, when in
3D mode):

http://bojan.fedorapeople.org/gnome3/app-picker.png

Dash ribbon can be therefore be longer and hold more items. User can
also immediately select other apps below or search for them (in fact,
that search box should be moved to the bottom, because it doesn't
require click-to-focus - this would make dash even longer when
required).

To locate hidden windows, one double clicks on the current workspace in
the switcher (here is where Windows key could also be used). The
following gets displayed (i.e. this is _the_ exposé that user asked
for):

http://bojan.fedorapeople.org/gnome3/window-picker.png

User can search for windows by title here. Note that in this version of
mockups there is no taskbar to find windows (maybe one could pop up
below the switcher when hovering over current workspace or something -
there are many ways to skin a cat; you know, like Alt-Tab, but with the
mouse).

Thanks for reminding me about https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=635989

I'll see if I can update that patch soon.

Why did you remove the dash view in this case? I often use the dash for switching windows more than I do the workspaces and windows view.
 

Workspaces, which are _always_ displayed in the panel to indicate to the
user where the windows are (and are static!), are managed by either
clicking on the current workspace in the switcher to show the workspace
ribbon (see below) or by clicking on a non-current workspace to switch.

http://bojan.fedorapeople.org/gnome3/workspaces.png

The workspace ribbon (which, just like with the apps menu, is
overlaid/displayed over the top of current windows of the workspace)
enables windows to be moved by dragging. Or, if modifier keys are
pressed (e.g. Ctrl or Alt), windows can be moved and placed at a new
location in the target workspace (Shift could do the usual snap stuff).
The ribbon can pan left/right if number of workspaces is excessive.

Finally, shutdown/suspend/hibernate and user functions (log out etc.)
that affect the whole desktop can be under an icon to the left of the
clock. Didn't have enough patience to put that on the panel (displaying
user's name is really not required - most users know their own name; it
also takes too much space on the panel).

Benefits:

- all these things do not depend on heavy animations (bar maybe exposé),
so can be done in similar ways in both 3D and 2D versions of the desktop
(i.e. consistency)

This requires the same amount of animations as the current gnome-shell. The thing is that gnome-shell is Clutter-based, which is OpenGL-based. There's no way someone is going to rewrite the code for the volume slider used in GTK+ or cairo so that a fallback mode can happen.

It seems your concern is: "fallback mode doesn't look pretty as or act the same as the shell". That's the point of a fallback mode: if it acted the same and looked as pretty, why would we ship the "heavier" one?

- when user wants to start a new app, he gets to start a new app

- when user wants to find a window, he gets to find a window

These things are already present in the gnome-shell.
 

- when user wants to rearrange workspaces and windows in them, he gets
just that

The dynamic workspace management is a bit fragile right now, but I'm working on something so that you can drag a window (or application) in between two workspaces, and a new workspace will be created, so I don't have to play a giant game of Towers of Hanoi when I accidentally close the last window on a workspace.
 

- there is still only one panel, on top, taking relatively amount of space

The current shell has one panel on top.

 

- nobody knows what Activities means; everybody knows what Applications
means :-)

That's not a benefit of this design specifically, and if user testing shows that people don't know what to do when they see the word "Activities", we can change it.

- all (most?) these things are touchscreen friendly

I don't know of any touchscreen problems with the current-shell.


To close this email:

I don't think you're going to be happy with any response someone gives you on the mailing list, which is "gnome-shell is new and fragile, some things aren't working as they should, and we're trying to make it better every day". This isn't the final version, and yes, some parts about gnome-shell 3.0 suck precisely because it's new code, and we don't have a lot of time to get a release out. If we had infinite time, we'd all be running the fastest, most perfect, customizable, simplistic, desktop that ever existed with the most clean, maintainable code behind it.

--

Bojan

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