Re: [Usability] Icon anywhere on the desktop



On Wed, 19 Nov 2003 18:59:07 -0800
"Andrew Tham" <atham staccatocommunications com> wrote:

> In my previous company, I used Sunworkstation and the CDE window
> environment. I did most of my work using the Cadence Design System,
> and for that, very frequently I used up to 20 windows a time. I
> organized these windows by minimizing them and group them in separate
> region on the desktop. 

I also find that feature very usable. Perhaps it's the feature I miss
the most in the gnome desktops. So I have spent quite some time looking
into this.

I think this feature would be very nice and useful for some people,
including me, not not for many. The case where it is useful is if you
have many windows open at once (even many on each workspace) and
especially if you have them open for a very long time.

> Now in my present company, I was given Redhat Linux GNOME 2.0.
> 
> When I opened up too many windows, the icon on the desktop bar are so
> crowded together that I cannot easily tell what they are.
> 
> [Recall that I group my windows in separate regions on my desktop in
> Sun's CDE environment].
> 
>  
> 
> Question is: Can the windows be minimized into icons on to the desktop
> (instead of only into the desktop bar) that I can move around and
> group them ?

There is currently no Gnome-compatible (NET-WM compatible) program that
can draw minimised windows as icons on the desktop. That there is
absolutely nothing that hinders such a program from working together
with the Gnome environment. XFCE (which began as a clone of CDE) might
very well implement this some time in the future, but it doesn't seem to
be considered high priority. They had it in the last version, but it
wasn't compatible with Gnome (like the current version is).

> Please give detail steps/instructions on how to do it.

My solution to this problem is to use VTWM (and sacrifice many of Gnomes
benefits). Your choice might be to use version 3 of XFCE.

> Thank you very much,
> 
> Andrew.
> 
> AndrewTham8 yahoo com



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