Xfce Forum

peetervois

Member

Registered: 2012-02-09

Posts: 1

Usability idea

Hi all,

The idea is basically copy from Gnome3 and in principle, XFCE does have long time one part of it. I think that the Gnome's new usability has improved a lot. What I mean: on Gnome when moving mouse on left top corner a separate screen will be shown, where you can select quick launch icon or select running window. The running windows are shown on reduced size. Also there is possible to select application menu where in principle similar thing is being shown as is xfce's appfinder (http://www.gnome.org/gnome-3/). I like the XFCE's appfinder from its birth and I contributed a part of the idea on that time.

My thoughts how to improve appfinder or how to mimic the new way of usability:

1. When moving mouse to TOPRIGHT corner,
1.1. then appfinder window is shown or is raised from whatever bottom it is.
1.2. then _winfinder_ will be hidden or closed.
2. When moving moust to TOPLEFT corner,
2.1. then running windows manager _winfinder_ will be shown fullscreen, (this is new one)
2.2. it does have following features:
2.2.1. the windows (raised and minimized) are shown in table,
2.2.2. the windows can be size of table cell
2.2.3. or windows can be relative size to table cell as they are relative to screen
2.2.4. or the windows size can be relative to the largest window inside its cell (improves readability to 2.2.3)
2.2.5. once new window will be opened, it will keep its table cell location (in Gnome it becomes hard to find the window it there is lots of windows- it feels like the windows are shown in random locations.)
2.2.6. On right side of the screen workspace switcher will be shown always and are not hidden behind the screen.
2.2.7. on left side of the screen I would suggest to have vertical quick launch bar of most launched applications from appfinder.
2.3. the appfinder window will be hidden or closed
2.4. I think that it is not needed to have the live windows inside the table of _winfinder_, a static image would be enough.
2.5. Table of windows manipulation
2.5.1. as mentioned earlier, each running window will keep its position of the table
2.5.2. if a row becomes empty in the table, the following rows can be raised
2.5.3. the optimal amount of columns is kept (depending from screen size, 3,4,...)
2.5.4. the earliest (top left) empty cell is used for new window.
2.6. Optional table of windows organisation
2.6.1. the windows are grouped by the process that is creating them and only first window is shown with a mark that there is collection of windows,
2.6.2. the other windows and the first one will be shown on new table after clicking on the window collection.
3. I would keep the current flexible panel of XFCE.
3.1. I would improve the panel for tablet devices in the way that there will be launchers for launchpad and _winpad_ it would require no coding today. Tablet devices do not have mouse, so the icon needs to be clicked.

I hope you will find inspiration on the things above. Thanks for the passion you have had so far!

Last edited by peetervois (2012-02-09 08:47:53)