Re: ANN: GWorkspace 0.6.5

[Michael Baehr]

On Sun, 06 Jun 2004 01:36:55 +0200, Sascha Erni, .rb <rb@nggalai.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Enrico,
>
> Excellent news! Works like a charm, and I am particularly fond of the
> splitting. Inspector.app is great, and I like the new Finder. Great
> work, it is much appreciated. :)

Agreed. Excellent work :)

> I do hope though, from a usability point of view, that you will rethink
> the Desktop.app <-> Dock <-> Recycler make-up. I was quite dismayed to
> find I needed to start Desktop.app to get the Recycler functionality,
> not only because Desktop.app runs sort of weird on my system (screen
> flashes when clicking on the desktop, only centered images are accepted
> as desktop backgrounds), but also because you copied some of the bigger
> interaction design mistakes Apple commited with OS-X, by implementing
> the dock like this. ;) For some more information on them, feel free to
> consult the following article:
>
> http://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html

I personally think we're going in the right direction with the dock
(being an OS X fanboy and all) but it is, indeed, going to be extra
screen clutter until we have a dock that can _fully replace_ the
WindowMaker dock's functionality.  Right now, it doesn't seem to work
as an app switcher (I click on the application icons and I go to
Desktop.app, not to the app I intend to, forcing me to use the
WindowMaker dock still).  Also if it is restarted, it forgets which
apps have already been launched before that restart, making it not
very useful to maintain the current state of your workspace.

As far as the desktop portion is concerned, it doesn't seem to
understand symlinks (in the recycler or on the desktop itself).  I
would love, for example, to have an icon for my home directory there
but that does not appear to work at the moment.

I am, in any case, looking forward to Desktop.app being more fully
fleshed out and usable.  Right now it is mostly eye-candy (not that
that's bad either, mind you :D )

> If you stick to splitting GWorkspace up into more modules in the future,
> may I suggest a Recycler.app to go along with the others? Alternatively,
> an option to chose whether the Recycler should be in the dock or on the
> desktop (as before, so to speak) might be dandy, too. And the dock needs
> to be disableable for those who don't like docks to begin with.

I agree with this.