Re: [Usability] The Window List Applet

[Gregory Merchan <merchan phys lsu edu>]

On Wed, Oct 01, 2003 at 05:49:42PM +0100, Calum Benson wrote:
> On Thu, 2003-09-18 at 17:00, Gregory Merchan wrote:
> 
> > My idea for the window list is very simple: hide the names of minimized
> > windows leaving just their icons showing in smaller buttons. Full names
> > remain available in the tooltips, as they are now.  Because many apps are
> > run maximized and obscure all other windows, minimizing rarely reduces
> > clutter at all. Shrinking the buttons leaves space available for the
> > buttons of the windows the user is more likely to want at the time - 
> > those that are not minimized. 
> 
> I kind of like the idea, but it sounds completely the wrong way around
> to me :)  I almost exclusively use the window list to restore minimized
> windows... I never need it to raise non-minimized windows, as I can
> already see parts of those and just click on them.  
> 
> So personally I'd much rather have the raised windows in the truncated
> buttons, and the minimized windows in regular-sized ones :)

How about having only the minimized windows there?

We could have two mutually exclusive applets. One being the Window List I
described, and the other an Icon Box that shows only iconified windows.

Both are very simple things and the interface should leave them as such.
Merging the user-visible objects with a mode setting would be stupid;
just think about the UI for it.

Cheers,
Greg