On Mon, Jan 21, 2002 at 04:30:54PM -0600, Jamin W. Collins wrote:
> On Mon, 2002-01-21 at 14:19, Robin Jury wrote:
> > b) I always use the slit. The toolbar however, I ignore. How about any
> > functionality that people want from the toolbar be put in the slit, and that> >
>can be placed wherever? Does anybody feel any strong need to have both at
> > the same time?
> I like this idea. It satisfies almost everyone involved. If all three
> options (Workspace Cycle, Active Window Cycle, and Date display) were
> slit options (I know they can be gathered with external applications,
> but is this minimal?)
> In short, I'm for the removal of the Toolbar and functionality moved to
> the Slit.
There are at least 2 types of arguments for/against both toolbar/slit:
1) functional arguments:
- it is probably possible to gather all the functionality of the toolbar
in the slit
- it is probably possible to gather all or allmost all the functionality
of the slit in the toolbar.
But neither of these extreme solutions gives the best functionality under
all conditions and at all times. A number of reasons why the toolbar
remains handy have already been given by others so I won't repeat them.
Given that both the toolbar and the slit can be 'autohidden' I see no
reason why either should be removed. Keep both in!
2) aesthetic arguments:
Some of us really care about the appearance of the desktop.
I personally like a very sparse desktop with absolutely no icons on it
and just a small, narrow toolbar.
The theme should be refined, with a good colour scheme (like a lot
of the blackbox themes).
The only pagers I find acceptable are the Enlightenment pagers (under
certain nice themes).
Something like GKrellM has the effect of putting a blaring jukebox
with flashing lights in your room to play Gesualdo madrigals.
WindowMaker is an excellent functional desktop but very crude and
ugly under all themes I have seen (ugly big icons).
Judging from the pictures on the blackbox sites I find the looks of
the bbtools icons not to my taste. And they are probably quite big.
(And that, big and a crude appearance, is certainly true for WindowMaker
dockapps and KDE applets).
The big advantage of using only a toolbaar from my point of view
is that it is very 'refined' (under allmost all the excellent
blackbox themes) and you only need "text", "colors" and "relief"
for the available functionality. (Even a battery monitor for laptop
users on the toolbar would only need to use text).
This makes it much easier to generate a tastefull personal desktop.
There are bound to be almost as many arguments for or against keeping
or removing the toolbar or slit as there are blackbox users.
I would plead to keep both. With autohide functionality.
Or, if possible, a choice at compilation time.
Alexander
