Hello All,
I have spent some time thinking about this, and here are my
thoughts.
In the spirit of borrowing the best from what we love, I figured that
a mix of fvwm2, vi, and Galilean thermometers would be a good idea.
PicoGUI loves rectangles, and the division therein, so that design
philosophy should be honored in any design that comes about. That
said, the most logical method would be to slice off a thin rectangle
from one of the edges of the screen.
Now, how that thin rectangle is used is where being clever, and
borrowing ideas is important. From fvwm2(and most other window
managers), I would like to borrow the idea of multiple desktops.
This was the killer app (for me) to switch from windows to linux way
back before I understood what the heck a kernel is. Keeping with the
idea of rectangles, they should be put out in a linear manner.
---------------
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
---------------
It would also work vertically, as the rectangle is maintained. The
rectangle that we slice off could go along one of the two long edges,
and that is our WM space. The WM needs to be able to quickly switch
between the "desktops", and I think that this is easily done by
having little arrows in the ends of our thin rectangle.
----------------
| || |
| APP SPACE |
| |
| |
| |
|----------------|
|<| |>|
----------------
Again, this goes with the horizontal method, but would work just as
well in a vertical manner.
Now, to borrow from vi. The current system of resizing windows is to
click the panel bar, and drag it where you want it to go, then watch
as everyone resizes. When one is moving a bunch of apps around, that
is a very functional design, but the rest of the time, they just sit
there, eating screen space. My idea is to use the rest of our thin
rectangle in a manner like the windows task bar, except clicking on
an app in that area makes that app's panel bar appear and disappear,
depending on what the user is calling for. That way, the app will be
easily re-sizeable and, the panel bar is only there when you need it.
This comes from the different modes of vi changing as you need a
different functionality. We could put a program launcher could be
put into this rectangle slice, and any other niceties that may belong
in there.
Now, to borrow from the nifty thermometer. I don't really have
anything to borrow from it, but I thought it would be cool to mention
it because I am weird that way.
These ideas are by no means completely solid. They might require
some munging, but this does give a paradigm shift for us to start
from.
Regards,
Brandon Smith
=====
Time is merely the dimention that allows for movement. Movement is the logical result
of time. The decision of where the movement will take for each of us is one that
exists outside the presence of time, thus making it timeless.
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