unity-design team mailing list archive

[Ed Lin <edlin280@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, May 7, 2011 at 3:31 PM, Toki Tahmid <oxwivi@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> The current launcher in Unity is app-centric - i.e. instead of window
> controls (open a new window, minimize window, etc.), it shows the windows of
> the application.
>
> If the launcher was window-centric like the classic GNOME panel is, how
> would you imagine it to function (e.g. window previews like Windows 7
> taskbar, what sort of animations referring to a window, etc.)?

See [Ayatana] Task Switcher Mockup
for two mockups, I don't think anything beyond mockups was discussed here.

A dock is never going to be a replacement for a classical taskbar,
even the Win7 "dock" because there's no button per window in the top
level interface (=always visible) and thus interacting with windows
will always be more complicated (slower) than a single click on a
taskbar.

The current answer to window management in Unity (like in OS X) is the
expose view which of course has both advantages and disadvantages.

In case you missed it, also relevant:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ayatana-design/+bug/733349