Visualization ideas for starting applications

[Florian Kuhnt <florian kuhnt gmx de>]

Hello guys!

Inspired by "Starting an app on another workspace" I got some ideas.
The following should be understood as design ideas without any idea of
how to implement them.

At the moment you can drag an application to a target workspace and
then you have to wait until the application is loaded and the main
window appears before you can do further adjustments to the
application window's size and position. Introducing a dummy window
could solve this and would bring some further improvements.


These would be:

* The dummy window (DW)
As soon as the application icon is dropped a dummy window (DW)
appears. It has window decorations, close button and maybe a large
icon of the application as a place holder in the main area.

* Visual feedback
>From initiating the application start until the actual application
appears, there is highly visible feedback saying "this application
window will soon appear here on this workspace". (Even better than the
dummy task-button in the taskbar of other OSs. ;-))

* Resizing
The DW has the size the application had before closing. It can be
resized and repositioned before the actual application is loaded. If
the "old size" is not available a standard size will be used.

* Abort loading
The application loading could be aborted before the main window
appears. Very useful when accidently starting a very large
application.

* Failing
If the application fails to start, a message appears in the DW's main
window. Maybe "retry", "console output" or other useful stuff can be
offered.

* Workspace handling
If the application is dragged to the empty workspace the DW can set
the workspace to be used and initiate creating a new empty workspace.


What do you think about these ideas?
Are there some drawbacks in a matter of design?
Is there already some work/thinking going on into this direction?

Any comments would be appreciated.