the next step on the desktop

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Thursday, February 3, 2011, alex.tolar wrote:
> Good night everybody,
> 
> I'm not using Windows since Ubuntu Dapper Drake, and Macintosh since before
> the colored iMacs: can't care less. Win7, OsX, Gnome3, Unity and many
> minor distros adopted a Dock: maybe not for a fool reason at all. I'm not

well, tbh, it's something like this:

* MacOS uses a dock 
* it becomes an object of desire
* Microsoft freaks out, does what it does: copies
* Canonical wants to become an object of desire, mimics Mac in many ways

i don't think there's been a lot of critical thinking about dock usage. in 
fact, the mac dock was roundly criticized when it came out by usability folks. 
i'm not dead set against a dock, but i am against doing something because it's 
a trend. and with docks, that's what we have here.

> possibilities and polish. The great game, probably, is setting then the
> defaults. :)

yes :)
 
> http://simplest-image-hosting.net/png-0-bitterock
> About having an icon-only launcher/task manager on the panel: there are 3
> GREAT benefits:
> 1) Single-instance applications
>  - Why having 4 Dolphins instances when you have tabs support?

because i -want- two windows open?

>  Talking also about memory resources! 

many multi-window apps are single process these days.

>  - It's not pleasant to accidentally run 2 instances of Amarok or Skype 

amarok is a single instance app, skype is just plain broken.

>  2) Friendly to touchscreens, which are probably the future.

if the number of items is kept to a minimum, yes.

> 3) Last, but not least: ditching the Application status icons!

that's doable with the current tasks widget as well, so this isn't a benefit 
of a dock.

> About Tool Box
> - There's a huge practical problem with the Tool Box: it must not be
> covered by windows. That's a good reason (and a good idea!) why it should
> be moved to Krunner. 

it configures something that is covered by windows though :) keeping controls 
contextual is important imo

> - could be a bonus to automatically launch Krunner
> when switching to a Dashboard?

interesting idea to try out...

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Development Frameworks
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
Url : http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/plasma-devel/attachments/20110203/b74c1527/attachment-0001.sig