Re: A Violent Realisation [Was: Preferences]

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

Rui Miguel Silva Seabra <rms 1407 org> writes:
> 
> For less clutter in the task list, I usually used the task list to only
> show minimized stuff, because it
>   a) occupies less space on a thin panel than icons (like in
> windowmaker, for instance)
>   b) has FEWER entries in the task list, making it less confusing.

Sure, I got a patch to add this feature today and it will probably go
in. I said no one missed the "layout options", "show only minimized
tasks" is not a layout option.

What I mean is that this stuff from the 1.4 config file is no longer
needed:

 follow_panel_size=true
 horz_fixed=true
 horz_never_push=false
 horz_width=450
 horz_rows=2
 horz_taskwidth=150
 vert_fixed=true
 vert_height=300
 vert_never_push=false
 vert_width=48
 vert_width_full=0

And to my knowledge we have not gotten a bug report or email asking
for any of that to come back, since the tasklist was fixed to just
work layout-wise.
 
>  If I did a 6x2 grid with viewports alone, I would be in a hell to catch
> either panel.

This demonstrates two important costs of preferences:

 - if you add one preference (say, edge flipping), you often need 
   to add additional preferences to make that first setting useful; 
   so prefs tend to multiply exponentially like bunnies.

 - as you add preferences, you often can't make things Just Work,
   because e.g. desktop/viewport config interacts with whether you
   have edge flipping which interacts with where your panels are...
   so configuring things becomes required rather than optional.

Your 6x2 setup is clever, but I don't see how it's fundamentally more
productive than other possible setups. I seriously doubt you get more
work done than users with other setups.

> Yes, the famouse wm-spec... the freedesktop.org isn't against workspaces
> or viewports.... actually, it even seems to talk about only viewports or
> virtually large screens!

The WM spec doesn't make value judgments on what features must/should
be implemented or used, it just tells you how to implement them if
you're going to implement them.
 
I'm ignoring the rest of your mail because you still haven't answered
the questions I asked, and so I don't understand your overall argument
or your premises. grep my previous mail for Question One and Question
Two.

Havoc