Re: Workspaces slowing me down.

[Diego Fernandez <aiguo fernandez gmail com>]

On Sat, May 14, 2011 at 12:50 PM, Adam Tauno Williams
<awilliam whitemice org> wrote:
> On Sat, 2011-05-14 at 09:19 -0700, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
>> On Sat, May 14, 2011 at 8:11 AM, Milan Bouchet-Valat
>> <nalimilan club fr> wrote:
>> Le samedi 14 mai 2011 à 10:51 -0400, G. Michael Carter a écrit :
>> > Usually I work on dual 24" monitors so I'll have maybe 2 virtual
>> > windows open.  But I was working on a laptop all this week and with
>> > the 15" screen I've had about 9 workspaces going.
>> > Moving between them I find is slowing me down in Gnome 3.
>> > One thing slowing me down is when I need to go from 1 to 9.
>> In System Settings->Keyboard->Shortcuts->Navigation, you can set
>> keybindings to move to workspaces. Use something involving numbers,
>>and you'll be able to get directly to the workspace you want.
>
> +1

problem is, after a while you forget which number workspace contains
what windows since everything was created dynamically.  One day you
might have your music player workspace 2 one day it might be in
workspace 5.

> But I only see navigation shortcuts available for "Switch to workspace
> 1" (which I assign to Alt-Shift-1) and "Switch to workspace 2" (which I
> assign to Alt-Shift-2).  I don't know how you'd add 3, 4, 5, etc...
>
> Generally I think a navigation shortcut for switch to last workspace
> [where "last" is the highest numbered workstation, not the
> chronologically previous] would be useful.  Then one could jump all the
> way down and one up [for example] vs. down, down, down, down, down.
>
>> That's probably the best solution, since people using many workspaces
>> are relatively rare, and are able to customize their keybindings. Most
>> users are likely to use only a few of them (I think, but of course
>> I've no data on that).
>
> I believe this is true;  I find that more than five starts to result in
> a loss of productivity.  I do not believe a human can effectively
> multitask to that level [an individual may believe that they can - but
> they're deluded].

you don't have to be working on all 9 at the same time.  I have plenty
of computer resources and leaving my windows open in its assigned
workspace for later use is much more efficient than closing them all
and reopening later.  Nowadays it's common to have 8gb or RAM... if
you're not leaving your applications open what's the point of it?

>> 9 is a lot of desktops!
>
> +1
>
>> I use a max of 6 I believe
>
> +1
>
>>  I never used the grid mode because it started getting complicated on
>> where all my windows was.  So then I send up panning around looking
>> for whatever window I wanted.
>
> Exactly, a grid doesn't help.  Then you just have to navigate in
> multiple dimensions; that is worse, no better.

I disagree, you set up each workspace for a certain purpose whether
you have things open on it or not.  You will always remember spacially
which workspace is which and takes no thought to navigate to it.  A
real life analogy is someone that has a drawing desk, a computer desk,
a writing desk, a filing desk and a desk with the tv.  Each desk is
stationary and you move to it as you need it.  Granted sometimes you
might have to reach over to another desk to grab something you need
for the current task, but it's still more efficient.

>> Honestly, I don't know if there is a particularly efficient way to
>> deal with 9 workspaces that doesn't involve putting numbers or some
>> other special function to deal with your particular workflow.
>
> Or... there is just no way to efficiently deal with 9 workspaces -
> period.

Although I don't need more than 6, there's a perfectly efficient way
to use 9.  You assign key shortcuts to your num key pad to match your
gridded workspaces.  You wont even have to navigate it with the arrows
since it's already organized spatially, but even if you choose the
arrows you can get to any workspace within 4 key strokes (that's going
from corner to corner) as opposed to 9 in a vertical arrangement


I think Gnome3 has a lot of potential, I love a lot of its
functionality, the way to open applications...  But not having a way
to set up a gridded static workspace is reason enough for me not to
use it.  I tried it for over a month and I just could not get used to
it.  It made me way less efficient and really frustrated me when
things just moved around on their own.  I'm back to Compiz and
fallback mode for now until an extension is made to provide the
functionality (I wish I had the ability to do it myself).


-- 
Diego Fernandez - 爱国