Re: A Violent Realisation [Was: Preferences]

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

iain <iain ximian com> writes:
> > Now the benefits of having both viewports and desktops:
> > 
> >  - you can have a double-nested grid with a grid of viewports
> >    inside a grid of desktops.
> >  - users can choose whether they want windows to overlap 
> >    between work areas.
> 
> ... snip ...
> 
> > Switching to viewports as the one thing we have is another option, 
> > instead of adding a preference.
> 
> That sounds like a plan, all the benefits of having both can be emulated
> with just viewports: Is a 2x2 grid of workspaces with a 2x2 grid of
> viewports much different to a 4x4 grid of viewports?
> 

If people want to discuss using viewports _instead_ of desktops to
implement our "workspaces," that's a very good conversation to
have. There are some pros and cons on each side.

Some issues:

 - viewports are different from what KDE does, so sort of confuse the
   overall desktop architecture situation and make interoperability 
   harder.

 - there's a reasonable user model ("multiple screens/monitors") 
   for desktops as well as a reasonable one for viewports
   ("viewing different parts of a big area"), kind of a wash here.

 - some people find it annoying if they have little bits of 
   windows leaking onto adjacent spaces (e.g. you can't push a window 
   offscreen to get rid of it).

 - viewports kind of help on 800x600 displays, but I'd argue only
   because apps are broken and don't handle those displays
   reasonably. i.e. I don't think the split-between-two-viewports
   window is really an acceptable way to interact with apps. So this
   is a band-aid/workaround IMO that discourages fixing apps.

 - it's totally infeasible to move gnome 2 to viewports at this point.

Nonetheless, I think switching to viewports _instead_ is a possibly
convincing argument. What I find really unconvincing is having both.

Havoc