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

[Gregory Merchan <merchan phys lsu edu>]

On Sun, Jun 22, 2003 at 12:41:09AM +0100, Alan Horkan wrote:
> On Sat, 21 Jun 2003, Gregory Merchan wrote:
<snip>
> > 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've not yet imagined a UI that would make that kind of layout (MxN)
simple.

If the window list is implemented as an executable separate from the
others, or as some sort of module, that will allow someone to
experiment with the UI for other functions.  I see layouts more
complicated than Mx1 and 1xN as too far off and untested to be dealt
with at this time.


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

This is off-topic, IMO, but I seriously doubt that will happen. The
window manager is not a good place to handle that.

A topic for another thread, however, is what positions should be remembered
for what. The best implementation may depend on the outcome of that thread.


> 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!).

I've been toying with some ideas for window manager tabs, but I ran into
a wall this morning. If I can get beyond it, they'll be the subject of
another proposal.


> 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.

I've not used the GIMP, or any UI like it, lately, so I'm not able to
comment now. 


> > 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.

Thanks for mentioning this. I knew there was a conflict somewhere, but
couldn't remember it.  Both MWM/CDE (iirc) and IceWM use Ctrl+Esc for
a window list, so at least some coming to GNOME will be familiar with
that keybinding for this function.  In the time I used Windows, I did
not discover their Ctrl+Esc binding until about two years ago. They now
bind the "Windows" key to showing that menu, and I believe they've
deprecated use of Ctrl+Esc for that purpose.


Cheers,
Greg