unity-design team mailing list archive

[Ed Lin <edlin280@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, May 7, 2011 at 9:07 PM, Toki Tahmid <oxwivi@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> This is NOT a suggestion to turn launcher window-centric, just a thread to
> discuss how it'd be.

Essentially a window-centric launcher is an oxymoron because "launch"
always means "application", but read on.

> On 7 May 2011 23:06, Toki Tahmid <oxwivi@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> I don't know why everyone's making an assumption that I suggest something
>> like preview of Windows 7's taskbar, but I want to make it clear it's just
>> an example.

I'm not making any assumptions, please read more closely.

I brought up the windows 7 task bar because it's the only mainstream
implementation of a fusion of taskbar and dock. However as I pointed
out in the default configuration it is actually a plain app-centric
launcher and only has secondary window-centric elements. Much closer
comes the non-default win7 taskbar that has app-launcher icons that
expand to window-icons which are grouped by application.
One step is probably missing though, see this mockup
http://i.imgur.com/YwMeg.png
from http://pastehtml.com/view/1e1uiox.html

I think that's the best implementation of taskbar meats dock offering
all functions of both without sacrificing too much.
But I'm not sure that's what you after. You are asking for a primary
window-centric launcher. That doesn't exist, it's not possible to do
without turning the launcher into something else, i.e. back into a
taskbar.