unity-design team mailing list archive

[Sense Hofstede <qense@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 17 May 2010 12:40, David Siegel <david.siegel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> More specifically, I'm interested in why people use minimize-to-tray
> instead of regular minimize. My suspicion is that it's easier to
> recall minimized windows by clicking on indicators than by clicking on
> the window list.
>
> If a window "minimizes to tray" instead of closing when the Close
> button is clicked, this just means that Close has become another
> Minimize button, and the tray has become another window list. Ugly!
>
> David
>
> On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 11:34 AM, David Siegel
> <david.siegel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> We have a great metaphor that's familiar to users and already
>> implemented: minimized windows! There's already a button on every
>> single window dedicated to getting a window out of your way if you're
>> not interested in the window but still want to retain it.
>>
>> Why aren't we using this? Why are we inventing more ways to minimize
>> windows? There should be only one way to do it. If there's something
>> currently flawed with how we're minimizing windows, let's fix it and
>> make this highly visible feature useful. For starters, it's been
>> suggested that minimized windows shouldn't appear when alt-tabbing.
>>
>> Do you use minimized windows? Why or why not? How do you use them?
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>> On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 11:18 AM, Luke Benstead <kazade@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> On 17 May 2010 10:52, David Siegel <david.siegel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> <cringe>
>>>>
>>>> If you are designing an interface, and suddenly you believe you need
>>>> to add a "bucket", this is a good sign that your initial design failed
>>>> somewhere. I would encourage you to "shelve the bucket" and revisit
>>>> your earlier assumptions. Shake things up a bit and ask yourself "what
>>>> could I do differently so that I don't need a 'bucket'?" Challenge
>>>> yourself to make a fundamental change to your design so the bucket
>>>> isn't needed.
>>>
>>> As I mentioned in another thread, the *bucket* would just be
>>> duplicating the window switcher, just like minimizing to tray does.
>>> Which are plasters over the fact that the window-switcher applet just
>>> doesn't deal well with many windows - so minimize to tray exists to
>>> free up space. Unity is on the right track with its dock, but is
>>> obviously tailored to netbooks, we could really do with something
>>> similar for the desktop (*cough* dockbarx *cough*) :)
>>>
>>> Anyway, ideally we'd have one place to look for application windows,
>>> at the moment we have two (window-switcher and notification
>>> area/indicator applet), potentially several if you factor in
>>> workspaces*.
>>>
>>> Luke.
>>>
>>> *P.S. I'd love it if whatever window-switcher replacement grouped
>>> windows by workspace, I'd then actually use them.
>>>
>>
>
I believe these are the reasons for using minimise-to-tray:
 * Applications take a lot of space in the window list applet on the
panel; it's not only the icon, but also some text
 * Out of view is out of the mind: if something is still clearly
visible at the bottom of your screen you will be distracted by it and
it feels untidy.
 * The window 'buttons' in the window list applet are very different
from the panel background, so they stand out a lot; attracting
attention with their different colours and the icons and the text

Like I said in my previous post, the cluttering of the screen is less
of an issue with the launcher as:
 * most applications will already be there AND it is natural for the
launcher to be filled with icons => it doesn't feel untidy when it's
full and the presence of an application in the launcher doesn't
attract more attention than usual since it's normal for it to be there
 * whether an application is running or not is indicated by a small
grey triangle, not very distracting

Maybe it would be interesting to investigate in what part of the
screen the mouse pointer mostly is; it could be that the location of
the tray or the window list makes one of the two ways of recalling a
minimised applications easier.

Mark Shuttleworth: I think we had a little misunderstanding in my
previous post: naturally I didn't mean background processes and
daemons; I meant that applications with a GUI -- and that most likely
would show up in the window list applet -- should never be hidden, but
maybe I hadn't made that clear enough. Of course it has no use to show
processes like gwibber-service in the launcher.

-- 
Sense Hofstede
[ˈsɛn.sə ˈɦɔf.steː.də]