Re: A Violent Realisation [Was: Preferences]

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

Duncan Mak <duncan ximian com> writes:
> 
> Hmm, regardless of the workspace/viewport/desktop terminology debate, is
> it possible to implement a '2-dimensional desktop' (as Luis puts it) in
> time for gnome 2? And by this, I mean exactly what Jeff mentioned
> up-thread; a grid of 'screens' navigatable with the up/down arrow keys
> as well as left/right arrow keys.
> 
> I know some people will still want the grid within grid setup, but I
> agree with you that it's a bit too much there. If we can achieve this in
> time, I think that should be enough to appease most people. 

I also think it will be enough to appease most people, which is why I
have this keybindings bug on my must-fix list (see my previous list of
puntable/not-puntable bugs; I have this as not puntable), and why I
don't have adding viewports on the must-fix.

The thing is, I strongly suspect the issue is just like the task
list. Everyone complained about not having all the options when we
hadn't quite made the task list work, but now that it works we haven't
gotten any more requests for the options. As I've said I think a
"maximum size" option might be nice to add, but I don't think anyone
using the current list is really missing the other 1.4 tasklist layout
options.

I want to see how many viewport complaints we get once the grid-based
keybindings are implemented. Then if we are still deluged we should
try changing desktops to viewports, or (maybe) try adding edge
flipping. Or maybe just try waiting for people to adapt, crazy as that
is...

But there are many things to try before we need to resort to having
_both_ viewports and spaces. ;-)

> To get this going, where should the code go? I don't know lisp, so I
> don't think I can help on the sawfish side, but I'm interested in
> writing C to get this function going into the "workspace switcher".

It's mostly a specification issue, see wm-spec-list archives from this
month.

I was planning to implement this myself if you'd rather not worry
about it - it's pretty darn trivial really. Just a matter of getting
the spec nailed down. Doesn't look like we have any objections to
what's currently suggested on wm-spec-list though so can most likely
go with that.

Havoc