[42] in Athena User Interface
Re: sawfish configuration
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Brad Thompson)
Thu May 18 00:40:39 2000
Message-Id: <200005180440.AAA16057@manatee.mit.edu>
To: Greg Hudson <ghudson@MIT.EDU>
cc: aui@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 17 May 2000 23:08:31 EDT."
<200005180308.XAA03422@small-gods.mit.edu>
Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 00:40:34 -0400
From: Brad Thompson <yak@MIT.EDU>
> I would pick just one modifier. This is fine as a shortcut, but I
> think there should also be a menu option to do this.
I'm not sure which menu you are talking about: is it the WM menu or the
gnome menu? I believe it is a worthwhile goal to eliminate window
manager menus. I considered the modifier-button-click to be a
compromise between getting rid of the functionality and putting up a
confusing button in the title bar. Since writing the original mail, I
have come up with another solution, which I believe at this point to be
better than the alternatives.
If we put the program "xkill" somewhere under the gnome menu (under a
name like "Destroy a Window"), the functionality would be retained, but
the clutter and confusion would be kept to a minimum. If you've never
used xkill, if run without arguments, it changes the mouse cursor and
destroys the first window you click on. Tibbetts mentioned that one
problem with this is that it is not obvious how to cancel the operation
once you have run xkill; clicking in the root window works, and is
fairly intutitive to me, but I don't know if the average user would see
it that way.
> > * Dragging on the title bar or a side of a window should move it.
> > Dragging on any window corner should resize it.
>
> Again, users may have trouble clicking on small areas. However, if
> this behavior is consistent with Windows 98 as you imply, then I'll
> live with it.
In my opinion, being consistent with win98 should be our second-to-last
priority (consistency with macos should be last). The side of a window
is hard to click on; I want it to move the window not because it will
be terribly useful, but because when it _is_ used, it should do the
Right Thing. On the other hand, if the corners are the only way to
resize a window, then they should be easy to click on. I promise to
pay attention to this---it annoys me, too.
> I think the ability to iconify windows into the panel taskbar is
> pretty key.
I totally agree. When I said I don't want "iconify", I mean that I do
not want a way for a window to be replaced with a desktop icon. As
mentioned in my original mail, I believe that one of the title bar
buttons should do this. I called it "send to taskbar"; win95 calls it
"minimize". I should have called it "send to panel" and not let win95
vocabulary creep into my mail.
> The others are fine, as long as changes made by sawmill-ui can be made
> effective without restarting sawfish.
I believe sawmill-ui changes are effective when you click "Apply",
"OK", or something like that. While I'm ranting about UI's, "Apply"
buttons are the tool of the devil.
yak
