Re: My opinions on Gnome Shell

[David Prieto <frandavid100 gmail com>]

Guys,

> Many (most?) times it is an option, but just occasionally it has
> flashing graphics, or white text on black background, or it simply annoys you.

Yeah, some windows will do that, it's true.
 

> I'm not trying to stretch credibility too far, just
> pointing out that you can either leave it in the stack or move it to another workspace (which kind of breaks the workspace per task idea) but not just "hide" it on the current workspace.

When faced with that situation, I usually move it to another workspace. It does break the task idea, and may bring some problems, though (e.g. there might not be an empty workspace next to the current one).

Yet, I believe these issues need to be exposed before they can be ironed out (e.g. implementing a way to rearrange workspaces). It's Gnome 3.0 after all. Nobody said it was perfect, but I think it's a good start.
 

> That simply had not occurred to me!  It is a bit of a mindset change
> from "hide the window I'm working on" to "hide my desktop entirely" but it certainly works

My point exactly. We've been minimizing for so many years that it's begun the "default" solution for every problem. There are other solutions, some of them as good if not better; but it makes sense that we want to go running back to minimization every time we want not to see something for whatever the reason.

When all you've got is a hammer, they say, every problem starts looking like a nail.
 

> (although I find a bit cumbersome by mouse alone).

Yep. As I said, changing workspaces should be easier. I, for one, would like to scroll up and down over the wallpaper. But who knows how it will turn out.
 

> Worth noting that it doesn't fit the hide-from-boss criteria as you are
> left with a blank workspace ;-)

So you were talking about your boss all along! :-P

In that situation I will move the window I don't want seen to another workspace, and then move back to my "work" workspace when I see my boss around. Works even better than minimization, because there's not even a taskbar entry to serve as a hint.

But I still think that minimization should be kept because I'm 100% sure that at least some applications will never evolve the way we expect them to (split into a daemon and a UI), or it might take years.

They certainly never will if minimization is around. If it isn't, though... optimization will find a way :-D
 

Err.. no. I was talking about GNOME 3 here :)

Well, I was talking about Gnome 2. About how minimization used to give my mom hell, and how after minimizing she would press the launcher again, expecting to get her previous window back.
 

Absolutely not. I would do it for Banshee, Rhythmbox, Transmission, Evolution and Empathy.

That's funny, because Firefox was precisely the app she had trouble with. Basically because it was the one she always used.

Your solution would therefore do nothing to improve the situation for her. Rather than hand-picking the particular apps we want to correct, I think it's better to use a system where no application at all will cause those problems.