Re: _NET_SHOWING_DESKTOP, per workspace vs. global

[Lubos Lunak <l lunak suse cz>]

On Tuesday 10 of August 2004 17:44, Elijah P Newren wrote:
> On Tue, 2004-08-10 at 14:12 +0200, Lubos Lunak wrote:
> >  I have a different problem with this property. There are 3 things that
> > can happen if you have the show desktop state turned on, and you start
> > new application. They are very well described at
> > http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-usability&m=108274247022218&w=2 . No matter
> > what you choose, somebody complains :(. KDE used to do 2), now it does
> > 3), GNOME seems to do 1). And as you can see in the mail, there's always
> > somebody who doesn't like that. Moreover as I read the vague description
> > in the spec, 3) is actually not fully compliant with it.
>
> I don't like any of the three, really.  I guess it boils down to the
> fact that some users want to minimize all the applications and start
> using different ones (while on the same desktop), while others want a
> quick way to access their desktop icons or menu without losing their
> previous state.  I have no solution, but I do have an alternate choice
> which may be no better than any of the other three:
>
> (4) Don't leave the showing desktop state unless the user manually does
> so.  If the user tries to launch a window, don't show it but instead set
> the _NET_WM_STATE_DEMANDS_ATTENTION hint.  If the user tries to restore
> a window from the taskbar, pop up a dialog telling the user they need to
> leave show desktop state.  Perhaps offer a button on that dialog to do
> it for them.

 While this option may be technically good, I find it to be the worst one from 
the user's point of view. It looks like asking for many complaints to me :(.

>
> Of course, this choice is merely an attempt to educate the user about
> what would be inconsistent for the window manager and other users in
> general.  And this doesn't satisfy the users who want a quick "minimize
> all" action (though perhaps that should be separate anyway?).
>
> *shrug*
>
> >  Do you have perhaps have something similar in your bugzilla or
> > somewhere? I really don't know what to do with this damn button :(.
>
> http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=92335 looks like the main one.

 The ideas in that bugreport look good to me, I think I'll update KDE to match 
the described behaviour.

-- 
Lubos Lunak
KDE developer
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