Re: Gnome shell suggestions after a bit of usage

[Jairot Llopis <yajo sk8 gmail com>]

2011/7/8 Jasper St. Pierre <jstpierre mecheye net>

> There is a problem when using Inkscape and the Alt+click combination. It is
> needed for that program, but usually window managers use it to move the
> window by default, but allow the user to change it, for example, for mod4 +
> click. I didn't find that in Gnome 3, and this is very annoying when using
> Inkscape. What about an option for that?

gconf right now. I have no idea if there are plans for a user-visible
setting right now. Sorry.

OK, i did not look gconf because I thought it was being replaced with dconf, where I did not find it.

gconf is slowly being phased out in favor of gsettings. Metacity (and thus Mutter) haven't been ported to gsettings. Florian is working hard on getting this to land though.

OK, I looked into this and got it working, thanks.

If anyone is interested in changing alt for mod4 for this or any other reason, this might help:
$ gconftool-2 --type string --set /apps/metacity/general/mouse_button_modifier '<Super>'

2011/7/8 Aurélien Naldi <aurelien naldi gmail com>

I agree that puttng "background" windows on a separate workspace
unclutters the overview, but it certainly isn't a perfect solution,
just a workaround:
* it still clutters the dock
* it clutters the workspace view, and strongly abuses the concept of
workspace for me
* it clutters the alt-tab switcher
* some applications (dropbox) don't have an explicit window at all
* it doesn't solve at all the "I want to view the status of this
application or give it some order" use case

I agree with you. Maybe in concept the current implementation could be fine, but the reality is that many times I end up switching to rhythmbox or empathy when I don't want to, because of that cluttering you say. Workspaces are not the perfect solution for all cases.

IMHO, we can't assume that every app must have a window.

I noticed there is another program that handles this very finely: SELinux (in Fedora comes out of the box). Seapplet is always running if you  choose it from the gnome-session-properties window, and raises a notification if it finds a problem. Clicking on that notification brings up sealert, but you can also go to Activities and open sealert manually. So, it's the same case: a program that you want to keep running but don't want to see unless it has to tell you something or unless you explicitly want to check it. Closing sealert doesn't stop seapplet.

If we apply this same philosophy, I could start telepathy in the background (even automatically at session start time), and it would raise the notifications if somebody speaks me. If I want to configure it, or see the online buddies list, etc., I can open empathy, do my job, and then close it, but without stopping the IM server.

I could also have rhythmbox playing, and manage it with my keyboard's play/stop/forward/backward keys (or with the controls in the notification), then open it from activities if I needed to search for a specific song, queue it, and close again without stopping the rythmbox server.

Servers could be able to set or not (depending on user's settings) a persistent notification with the most important info/controls for the user. Programs would not clutter workspaces, alt+tab, docks, etc, unless the client's gui is explicitly open. Servers could be automatically started with session without raising any windows.

I think this can be a good solution, and, if I'm not wrong, empaty and rythmbox are already programmed in a server/client way.