Re: [Usability] Window List (not the applet)

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Sat, 21 Jun 2003, Gregory Merchan wrote:

> Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 12:30:34 -0500
> From: Gregory Merchan <merchan phys lsu edu>
> Reply-To: merchan baton phys lsu edu
> To: usability gnome org
> Subject: [Usability] Window List (not the applet)
>
> GNOME does not have an interface to manipulate groups of windows, except
> the Show Desktop button. There is no way to tile or cascade a set of windows.
>
> MS Windows provides tiling and cascading from a right-click menu near
> the window buttons on its taskbar. It seems to affect all visible windows,
> though I'm not sure how which are selected.

This is a really crappy awkward way to get at this feature, especially
when you have a Panel/taskbar that is quite full, thankfully you seem to
have a much better idea.

> OS/2 featured a Window List when both mouse buttons (a.k.a., Button 2 or
> the middle button) were clicked on the desktop or Ctrl+Esc was pressed.
> With it, the user could perform operations on a single window or a
> user-selected set of windows.

> Here is a screenshot of a window similar to the OS/2 window list:
>
>   http://www.phys.lsu.edu/students/merchan/shots/WindowList.png

Looks interesting, although I cant resist the temptation to ask for more
features, clever window layout is hard.
I may as well get this in while it is about as on topic as it is ever
going to get

It would be nice to be able to Tile Windows a little more sensibly.
Tile Vertically and Tile Horizontally produce the same results when you
have 4 windows, which is annoying when you have four images that are all
portraits.

I believe newer versions of Metacity will be better about remembering
window postions which will help a lot.

If you can think of a way to do complicated window layout and once and for
all stop programmers reinveting the window manager within every
application I wish you the very best (Tabbed interfaces, yuck!).

Trying but failing to think of something intelligent to say about tiling a
when you have an application like the GIMP which has a main document and
whole load of dialogs and the pallette that you dont particularly want
tiled in a simplistic way.

Hopefully the experts can let us in on a few secrets and suggest an even
better solution to advanced window management.

> The list will be shown in response to clicking mouse button 2 or
> pressing Ctrl+Esc. It may also be available from a menu or a launcher.

in gnome 1.4 Ctrl+Esc popped the Main Menu, which is what a Windows
refugee like myself expected.  It is not important but probably worth
knowing.

> Cheers,
> Greg

good luck

- Alan