On Sun, May 2, 2010 at 11:28 AM, Graydon <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Sun, May 02, 2010 at 10:53:45AM -0400, Adam Maas scripsit: > [snip] >> little caret), but it still fails due to the poor assumption that your >> launcher and task switcher should be the same thing, a UI paradigm >> which sucked on NeXTStep and still sucks today. And it forces you to >> stack running windows, rather than having the option of having each >> individual window show up on the taskbar when you don't have a lot of >> them open (one of my favourite things about the Windows-style >> taskbar). > > This is why good implementations of the "dock" paradigm use viewports, > too, and a large virtual desktop. You can give every running > application or application group its very own screen and switch rapidly > between them. > > That would really confuse people used to the Windows Task Bar, though. > (I know this from watching people try to interact with my standard > AfterStep desktop setup, so it's not just my emulation of the > turnip-nature dealing with Windows.) > > -- Graydon >
I actually moved to that sort of setup for a while during the Win98 era (Running AfterStep in fact, on Linux and SunOS). I can use it, but greatly prefer the taskbar implementation. The use of large virtual desktops and workspaces results in an excessively complex UI interaction (I've got the same beef with the latest fondness for mouse/trackpad gestures, Apple, I'm looking at you here, but all the smartphone vendors are guilty too). Workspaces/Virtual Desktops are pretty much geek-only UI. Note my biggest beef with the Dock is no launcher/switcher separation. I want to know what windows/apps I have open at a glance, but my launcher needs are different (typically I have my standard apps load on login, my Quick Launch bar has my most common short-time use apps). Since I tend to run few apps and lots of windows, the Dock's advantages (which orient towards either 1 app at a time use or many apps/few windows) are actually weaknesses for me. Note that on my Mac, I've got a docked Application folder, which I use like the Start Menu, a couple docked apps which load on launch and that's it. It's the closest I can get to my preferred configuration and mostly, it works all-right. On Linux I run GNOME, so I have a Windows-style taskbar and I run entirely in the first workspace, and my Vista setup is setup to work with Quicklaunch Icons and a normal taskbar with auto-stacking disabled. -- M. Adam Maas http://www.mawz.ca Explorations of the City Around Us. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
