[Usability] nautilus, panel, and metacity not acting as if the desktop was a single entity

[Dennis Heuer <dh triple-media com>]

Hello,

don't want to shout about metacity, have lost fun on it. However, it will never warm my heart. One thing, though, is really disturbing even from the grandma's view. Metacity manages workspaces, which is very nice but completely undiscussed to the user and appearing like a concurrent entity (or metaphor) to windows, the panel, and the nautilus spatial view.

Today, I find the pager on my panel, think about what it could mean, am a bit irritated about what it does, then find it useful but can't use it as expected because only windows obey to it. The rest just ignores the potential of workspaces in total. For example, I'd like to have my nautilus audio icon on the workspace where all my audio apps reside but my nautilus email icon on the workspace where all my office tools reside. I don't see a sense in having all of my icons on all of my workspaces. The same with panel applets. 

Please, integrate workspaces as if they were only rooted windows, containing further windows. This said, they should possibly be handled by nautilus instead of by metacity. The system should behave as if there are more than one entries to the desktop and they (really) can be configured individually, as wished. Workspaces should not be just another metaphor but a natural part of the one dominant metaphor (a kind of spatial desktop view).

Regards,

Dennis Heuer