On Mon, 6 Jan 2003, Lalo Martins wrote: :On Mon, Jan 06, 2003 at 12:32:43PM +0100, Peter Graf wrote: :In real-life practice, I *never* have seen anyone using overlapping windows :for real work. Most people use one single "maximized" window at a time, :others (when there is legitimate need to have more than one app or set of :data readily available) use "tiling" (spreading the windows so that they :don't overlap). Except for dialog boxes, overlapping windows are extremely :confusing and unintuitive.
Thank you for bringing this point up - I see (when I think about it) that I DO work in a number of ways. Here are my conclusions. Just a quick note: when you work in "one window at a time", it overlaps all other windows COMPLETELY, instead of partially, which is the sense we mean when we say "overlapping". Just semantics. Within X: if an app has a number of small windows (programming environment, or image editor (gimp)), I'll have as many as will fit in tiled mode. Usually the little windows don't require scrollbars, so that they "fit" in a tiled sense. If I have a number of apps, that rely on a large amount of screen real estate, then I typically run those in overlapped mode, to reduce the chance of using up more screen real estate on unnecessary scrollbars. Basically, if a big window has a border I can grab with a mouse to bring it forward, then I'm happy for it to be under other big windows. Apps like web browsers, images, and movie players come in this class. And even if I can't see a border, I can "rely" on the app switching method of a typical window manager (Alt-Tab) to bring each window to the foreground, or use a "panel" that shows apps in a block...click on the block, brings that app forward. Within twin (160 chars by 64 lines): I typically run one window at a time, because it seems pointless to me to waste characters showing window borders when I don't need them. Running windows in a tiled sense here increases the amount of screen real estate needed to show these borders, when compared with the screen on a typical X window manager sense. Again, if the window (say, a clock) is small, then I'll stick it at the bottom of the main windows. To those of you without fixed-width fonts, I apologise ahead of time. ______________________ |main window & text | (Underneath are a stack of other maximised | 160x60 | windows that are the same size as this one) | ....... | |____________________| _____ ___________ |clk ||sml window | ----- ----------- The menu bar for twin only pops up when I request it (hit <Pause> or <F12>), and appears on top of any other windows, then disappears when I select something. I set it that way...to give me more real estate. So again, I suppose I mix metaphors. These are only my own responses, and probably the reason why I use X at 1280x1024 instead of 640x480 8-), and twin at 160x64 insteadof 80x25 (*yuck*) I grant that I am NOT as efficient in X as I find I am within twin, purely because I'm using the mouse when I possibly don't need to, and not using (for example) Alt-Tab instead. Hey - I'm pretty much only a home desktop-user. <shrug> I will readily admit it was picogui that allowed me to see that, even though a REALLY small window was a pain, I could still use it to do IRC, for example. That's not only a testament to picogui, but also to the writers of the IRC client too. So it can be done, on certain applications, and in fact, a "one window" approach is what makes the most sense in a small-screen environment for Human Interface Useability. But, as I said, I tend to use a mixture of methods. Cheers...keep up the good work. -- /| _,.:*^*:., |\ Cheers from the Viking family, including Pippin, our cat | |_/' viking@ `\_| | | flying-brick | $FunnyMail : What do you mean, I've lost the plot? \_.caverock.net.nz_/ 5.40 : I planted them carrots right here!! ------------------------------------------------------- This sf.net email is sponsored by:ThinkGeek Welcome to geek heaven. http://thinkgeek.com/sf _______________________________________________ Pgui-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/pgui-devel
