Re: [Usability] Changing the taskbar semantics

[Maurizio Colucci <seguso forever tin it>]

On Wednesday 01 September 2004 06:30, Kalle Vahlman wrote:
> On Wed, 1 Sep 2004 00:16:58 +0200, Maurizio Colucci
>
> <seguso forever tin it> wrote:
> > Currently the taskbar is a list of (open) windows.
> >
> > Idea
> > ------
> >
> > Could the taskbar become a list of (open) application instances?
>
> [...]
>
> > 1. There is a very good reason. While the taskbar is a good place to
> > switch between different instances (e.g. two mozilla windows), it is not
> > a good place to switch between child windows of a single instance (e.g.
> > gimp windows).
> >
> > Why? Because different instances are usually meant to be visible one at a
> > time, whereas child windows of a single instance are meant to be all
> > visible at once.
> >
> > Take gimp for example: gimp has a single instance with many windows. The
> > windows are meant to be visible at the same time, so you would never use
> > the taskbar to switch between them.  You would just click inside them.
>
> This is actually not true. When working with Gimp, I often have several
> image windows open but do not want to have them visible all the time. 

You are right. That's terrible. So we HAVE to rely on application-specific 
hints?

Wait: what if the taskbar detected that the two gimp windows containing images 
are OVERLAPPING, whereas the palette etc are not? Since they overlap, this 
means they can't be toggled by clicking on them, so they MUST be meant to be 
toggled with the taskbar. So it actually creates TWO taskbar buttons, each of 
which, when clicked, brings on top one image window and all the auxiliary 
windows.

> Of 
> course this could be made a special case. But Gimp could do this already,
> just hinting the window manager that only the main window and image windows
> should appear in the list and raising the others with main would have the
> same effect but without hiding any other applications. With the new docking
> system, I think this is something that should be considered.
>
> > 2. Gnome should automatically allocate a virtual desktop for gimp. When
> > the user clicks the gimp button on the taskbar, the view will change to
> > that virtual desktop, which REMEMBERS the active window. Voila'.
>
> But what happened to the Gimp tutorial web page I was looking things up?
> It would be annoying to have to jump around vdesktops just to see it again.
>
> > What about it?
>
> Basicly, the idea is good and, I would think, doable. I don't think the
> virtual desktop part would work though.

I agree. All that is needed is the taskbar to bring all the gimp windows on 
top. The virtual desktop thing was just a way to do that, but not ideal.

-- 
Maurizio Colucci
http://logicaldesktop.sourceforge.net