Re: 2.3 Proposed Features

[Mark McLoughlin <mark skynet ie>]

Hi Glynn,

On Thu, 2003-02-06 at 22:50, Glynn Foster wrote:
> Hey hey,
> 
> > 	Here's a list of some of the things I expect to get done in the panel
> > for 2.4:
> 
> This is definitely all cool stuff - of course now is the time to
> seriously rethink how we do panels and the interaction and waste time in
> usability world....um....I guess I'm wondering if we can just kill
> drawers ;)

	I think I've used all workable concrete ideas available when doing
this. Its easy to say "we need better ideas", but I don't think anyone
has come with anything particularily earth shattering yet.

	(Note: I'm talking about ideas related to the toplevel panel windows,
how its moved about, manipulated etc. - I'm not talking about the
various ideas people have had for how applets should work better or how
to improve how buttons/launnchers/applets etc. are laid out on the
panel. That's a different big job :-)

	About drawers - I've heard plenty of people say in the past that
drawers should disappear, but I haven't heard a really good argument for
that. I don't see what's inherently wrong with drawers - it seems to me
that some people use them and find them useful and they don't present
any difficulty for users who don't use them.

> Another thing would be cool to solve is applets on vertical panels - not
> that I'm trying to increase your workload or anything [grin].

	Well, really that has nothing to do with the panel itself. This is why
I hate the fact that applets are so straightforward to write - the world
and his mother write l33t new applets but no thought is given to making
them work well on really small panels or vertical panels. Each
individual applet needs to be designed to handle these scenarios well -
and that's not an easy task for most applets.

Good Luck,
Mark.