On Mon, 6 Sep 2004, Tuomo Valkonen wrote:

> 
> This release finally includes a usable (yet still incomplete) version
> of the mod_panews workspace module (that has also bored the name 'autows'
> and 'rubberws' previously). The final outcome is not exactly what I
> initially planned, as those plans turned out not to be that workable.
> Instead, what mod_panews does is add to the basic tiled ionws approach
> overlappable splits and automatically filled panes that are initially
> empty. Each window is classified and assigned to the pane matching that
> classification. (The default classifications are T(erminal), V(iewer)
> and M(iscellaneous).)

Well done for a very useful feature.

I've been messing about with it, and it's quite nice for working with the
insight debugger (the application with `satellite windows' I use most).
One thing that comes up is that there are some applications where the
satellite windows have a `correct' size, where being bigger than this
doesn't mean they are any more useful (think the various gimp tool windows
which don't show more/bigger tool icons if you make them bigger) and some
applications where, if space is available, making satellite windows bigger
improves usability.  An example of these are the windows you get with
insight where the windows contain lists, eg, stack window contains a list
of stack frames, variables window contains a list of local variables. If
these are stacked vertically in a pane and there's more space available
then expanding them equally so they fill the extra space means more is
visible in each window without needing to scroll.

As a wishlist idea, it would be nice to have some setting for a WPaneWS
used to determine if windows in automatically filled panes should be sized
so they occupy an equal proportion of the pane. (The user would have the
responsibility for making sure that this is only set when it's sensible
behaviour for the application on the WPaneWS.) I imagine this would be
relatively involved to implement as creation/deletion of a window has to
cause a resize of the all windows in the pane, but if it's not that much
work I'd certainly find it a useful feature.

[.....]
> 2004-09-05:
> 
>   * Added frame_managed_changed_hook (improved from
>     frame_content_switched_hook).

With this change my only-show-necessary-tabs feature can now be
implemented entirely in lua. Many thanks.

-- 
__cheers, dave____________________________________________
www.inf.ed.ac.uk/people/staff/David_Tweed.html
tel: +44 131 651 3447  fax: +44 131 651 3435
X wrote a book about this, which Y was carrying around for
a long time with little discernible effect -- John Baez

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