Re: Workspaces off the grid

["Alan Schmitz" <alan ankeny net>]

> On 06/13/2011 Andrew Douglas Pitonyak wrote:
>
>  I use Fedora, so that is my reference frame..... With Fedora 14, it 
>  seemed that the workspaces would lead into each other (I used 
> Compviz so perhaps if I used now compviz, it still would). When I
> upgraded to Fedora 15, that went away and now it seems that the
> workspaces are totally unrelated (but I don't speak authoritatively).
>
>  I always thought of them as...... a place to group applications 
>  related to a particular task (even if that task is just general use).  
>  If I want to be able to see two applications at the same
> time, well, they must be on the same virtual work space.

I can't think of them as a "place", because they don't stay put
any more.  While composing my original message last night, I
accidentally closed Thunderbird, and the space it was on just
disappeared.  I had to start Thunderbird in a new space at the very
bottom of the list.  It moved from just above my browser all the way
to the bottom of the workspace list, and there's no easy way to put
it back in its place.  I usually run one application on each space,
and the spaces keep closing when I try to arrange applications on
them.

>  I usually have email running in the first desktop and a web browser 
> on the second.

I always have nine spaces open.  E-mail, web browser, and terminals
run across the middle row.  Two other browsers are on the center
column.  Virtual machines, remote desktop sessions, and other full
screen applications run in the four corners when I need them.

>  I think that the primary difference is that you can't always just 
> have say a graphics editor on workspace 4 because you will not have a
>  workspace 4 if you don't also have workspaces 1, 2, and 3. This is a 
>  disadvantage to which there are workarounds (such as open a terminal 
>  window in each desktop). I think that the intent is that you do not
>  need to predefine how many workspaces you will have and then you can 
>  dynamically add more as the need arises. Certainly this is a paradigm 
> shift.

Now I'm finding that I'm constantly defining spaces rather than just
using them.  What's worse I'm constantly scanning all of the spaces
looking for applications, because muscle memory doesn't work any more
because there's no spatial point of reference.

>  Is there a keyboard short cut or an overview system I'm supposed to 
>  use navigate running applications quickly?
>
>  Yes... Off hand, I would begin here: 
>  http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/CheatSheet
>  http://askubuntu.com/questions/36956/gnome-3-keyboard-mouse-shortcuts  ;
>  On Fedora, I found a list of shortcuts from system settings from this 
>  link  http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=263727 ;
>  Specifically,  User > System Settings >  Keyboard > Shortcuts

There doesn't seem to be anything new here that helps me organize
applications.  There are just a few variations of alt-tab style
switchers.  I still have to scroll through every running application
with alt-tab or control-alt-up/down to find anything.  How do I
quickly go to a running application without scanning through all
running applications?

>  I am still out as to whether I love or hate Gnome 3. It seems that 
> you  need to make a serious investment in relearning how to work to 
> receive benefits. In other words, your old way of working will not
> function here. For a casual user that does not make heavy use of
> the UI intricacies, I doubt if it will make a difference.

I'm still struggling to understand the benefits I'm supposed to get
from this new system.  I only had to create workspaces once in the
previous system.  I never had to think about creating them, because
I used the ones I already had.  I knew where everything was, because
it stayed where I put it.

If a workspace isn't a place any more, what is it?  I need a new
mental image.  What has the desktop been replaced with?



-Alan