Re: Nautilus desktop icons and metacity - another point of view

["D. D. Brierton" <darren dzr-web com>]

On Mon, 2003-06-02 at 12:31, Luca Ferretti wrote:

> Well, IMHO the main trouble is not "icons are on left they should be on
> right", but "Metacity should open centered windows".

I'm neutral as to whether the issue should be solved by changing the
default desktop icon position or by changing the default window
positioning strategy - either will do; what is important is that desktop
icons are not obscured the minute you open a window.

> Someone said that if you want GNOME to behave just like OSX, buy a Mac,
> but PLEASE take a took at this link
> 
> http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/Essentials/AquaHIGuidelines/AHIGWindows/chapter_5_section_6.html
> 
> It's the Aqua HIG, the page related to placing windows. You can hate
> Apple for their patent/closed_source/coolness/whatever policy, but you
> have to admit they have 2 decades of user caring, isn't it?
> 
> IMHO it's more logical then left-open in GNOME (and KDE? and Win?), and
> more comfortable for user (personally I can say that I always move
> focused and editing window in the middle of the screen, for example
> while I'm writing this mail :-P). 
> Besides, 'cause typically I (but I think all us) don't place any icons
> in the middle of the screen, but on borders, a middle sized window can't
> hide them. 
> Plus this can add a little coherence with modal dialog/alerts, 'cause we
> open them in the middle of parent window

I agree that Apple know what they're doing when it comes to usability,
and I also can see that trying to centre windows makes sense if you
don't have many open at once. However, I'm not sure that I understand
how that window positioning strategy works when you're working with lots
of open windows. Also, doesn't centring the first window dramatically
reduce the available space for tiling the next windows you open? I'm
thinking here of people working at lower resolutions, like 800x600 or
1024x768.

-- 
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D. D. Brierton            darren dzr-web com          www.dzr-web.com
       Trying is the first step towards failure (Homer Simpson)
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