On Sat, Aug 30, 2003, Herouth Maoz wrote about "Re: OS-X rules, X sucks (Was: Forthcoming "Blitz" of Announcements)": > I never use multiple desktops and I don't understand why anyone would > need to. >... > The issue is that window overlap is not solved by multiple desktops > because in any case the second window is hidden. The key to work with >...
Let me try to explain why I think that virtual deskops are indeed a great thing, and why I find the alternatives (including Windows' default UI) to be misguided. Please note that I'm using the "ctwm" window manager (more on that below), not KDE or Gnome, so my comments may not apply to those more common Linux window managers. I also talk about the "rooms" variant of virtual desktops, not the continuus (one huge desktop) variant. The idea with virtual desktops is that you never iconize (minimize, in Windows-speak) any windows. Windows also rarely need to overlap and obscure each other. How can this magic happen? Think why you feel the need to iconize some window (or obscure it). Usually it's a window related to one task (say, you were writing email) and then you suddenly want to do something else (say, paint a picture in GIMP, surf the web, or whatever). Now instead of taking that mail window and iconizing it, and iconize also other relevant open windows (perhaps you had a dictionary window open, and a certain file open to refer to while writing the mail, or whatever), you just leave it be on it's desktop (let's call it the "mail desktop") and move to a fresh desktop. This is a clean desktop, where you start the GIMP. GIMP open ups a dozen windows (eek, you've got to hate that) which you carefully position the way you like. Now you suddenly want to return to that email writing session. No problem - just switch to the mail desktop, and all the relevant windows are opened and perfectly positioned there! When you want to go to back to the GIMP, you switch to that desktop and it's all waiting for you there - open and perfectly positioned. Sure, a good window manager supporting virtual desktops needs to have a few features to be convenient. You need to be able to move windows between individual desktops; You need to be able to share windows between some (or all) desktops. You need to have an on-screen "map" of all the windows in all desktops, so you'll know in which desktop the program you're looking for (say, gimp) is now running. The window manager I'm using, ctwm, has all those features. The map window is extremely convenient, color coded and labeled so I always know where my windows are. Personally I switched to a window manager with a virtual desktop over ten years ago, and I never looked back. And it always made me laugh at the "primitive" MS-Windows window-manager, and when Windows-users had the audacity to tell me that Windows had a better windowing system. The first one I used was "vtwm", and then "tvtwm", but in a few years I found the one I liked best and use to this very day: ctwm. Ctwm doesn't look snazzy (though it doesn't look as crappy as twm either!) and may not look very modern, but I still consider it the best available window manager (except the Mac one, which I have never seen). I'm sure other people on this list can recommend other good virtual- desktop-supporting window-managers that they use. -- Nadav Har'El | Sunday, Aug 31 2003, 3 Elul 5763 [EMAIL PROTECTED] |----------------------------------------- Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |I started out with nothing... I still http://nadav.harel.org.il |have most of it. ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
