Re: [Ayatana] Design problem: Menus hidden by default in Unity

[Vishnoo <vish@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 2011-03-22 at 12:08 +0000, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: 
> 
> Vishnoo wrote on 19/03/11 04:31:
> > 
> > No, they havent. 
> > I take it you havent read Owen's Mail on the Shell ML.. :-)
> 
> I had. He listed some use cases for minimize but not all, he identified
> workspaces as an arguable substitute for some of those use cases, his
> user data was from two geeks at work, and he was honest in admitting
> that he didn't really know whether it was a good idea.
> 
Fair enough..

btw, Haha! You were on a roll last week ;p ("geeks at work" and bug
reports with step 0 )
> 
> > For apps requiring a maximum size, window should just open so. 
> > Right now, for any alternate *custom* size one would require to either: 
> > 1- restore a maximized window and - then resize to custom size
> > or
> > 2- resize a window from the normal state to custom size
> > 
> > Maximize just makes it harder to get to custom sizes. Why even have it
> 
> Because the lack of maximize (or something like it) would make it harder
> to focus complete attention on something.

I'm not suggesting that a maximum window state should not exist, but
that "maximize" is a broken window management operation/state.

> > ? (I hope maximize just gets killed, only then will apps fix at their
> > end. ;p)
> 
> Do you have a specific suggestion? What should a text editor program do,
> for example?
> 

I use Gedit very minimally, so I would be bad at guessing it's optimal
size. These need user-usage data. 

However, for app like Web-browsers, main window of email clients,
inkscape,..., they should probably open at maximum screen size. Even
this depends on the hardware. If someone has a 24" monitor, they might
not need the window at that size. While for laptops/15" monitors a
maximum window size might be good for these apps.

If we want to make any improvements we need to collect a large pool of
user data like how Firefox did to reduce its menu (yea, I know you hate
that FF menu ;p )

We really need to collect mass user data as to how people are using
their application windows, at what sizes they use the app and how often
they are resizing.

> 
> > I seriously dont understand why this fascination for resizing/resize
> > grips exists. 
> > I'm not saying that resize feature should not even exist, but Resize is
> > something user should not even care about, and should spend less time
> > doing. 
> 
> Resizing grips are not the only way of allocating screen space between
> tasks. Tiling is another well-known mechanism, but it is less visually
> stable and requires a greater investment of time.

Greater Investment of time? Maybe, but would be a very good investment
especially when there is a Window-manager developer on contract. ;-)

-- 
Cheers,
Vish