GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 126532
Modified Window List applet
Last modified: 2005-08-15 01:43:43 UTC
Description of Problem: I've modified window list applet a bit. I just got tired of its crappy behavior. It used to change its size depending on everything, even the weather and no one could guess where the next task button was going to be. And I saw no way to make it stable, than to hack it a little. Now it's fully determinate and you can control almost everything. First of all, I changed preferences dialog. Window List Content and Restoring Minimized Windows work as they used to. But one new feature is Windows Sorting. If you choose not to sort, then new windows and applications will be added at the end of the list, that is at the right side or bottom, depending on the orientation of the panel (horizontal or vertical). Next, I removed Minimum size, added Minimum buttons size and Maximum buttons Size and moved grouping settings to this page. So, the list always tries to be as big as possible, but smaller than Maximum size or empty space on a panel, whichever comes first. Buttons try to be as big as possible, but smaller than Maximum buttons size. If they get smaller than Minimum button size they try to group, if grouping option is on. If it is off, or it is not possible to group anymore, a small scroller appears at the end of the window list. It works for horizontal and vertical panels, for panels wider than one row of buttons, etc.
Created attachment 21304 [details] Patch for gnome-panel 2.4.1
Created attachment 21305 [details] Patch for libwnck 2.4.0.1
Created attachment 21306 [details] New preferences screenshot 1
Created attachment 21307 [details] New preferences screenshot 2
Created attachment 21308 [details] Scroller screenshot
*** Bug 125555 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
See also my patch in bug #125023. CC'ing Alex to get is comments on the libwnck patch. (One of the comments in bug #125023 was 'Having a prefs for maximumg button size sounds totally wrong. We totally don't want to get back the gnome 1.4 "user has to enter set of nonobvious pixel values" dialog.').
Hm, I should have looked more thoroughly before posting a bug. How could I miss it? We totally don't want to get back the gnome 1.4 "user has to enter set of nonobvious pixel values" dialog.' Well, I don't really think that button size is nonobvious. Not less obvious than minimum size, I'd say... How about merging the bugs to agree about how window list should look and make it such?
*** Bug 129722 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Adding the PATCH keyword.
Dennis: thanks much for your work on this. However, in order for it to be useful and get accepted, you need to be aware of a few things: + "I did stuff" bugs with huge patches generally tend to get ignored because its hard to separate out the "stuff" and figure out which bits we want and which bits we don't want. Its much better to separate the implementation of each individual piece and submit separate bugs. + Fairly detailed (but concise) rationale on each change is useful. So, as far as I can make out, this is what you're proposing: + Adding an option to control sorting. I think Vincent's approach to "fix" sorting in bug #125023 makes more sense. Only failing that should we consider adding a new preference. + Removing "Minimum Size" and adding "Minimum/maximum Button Size". I think this is covered in bug #125023. + Intead of squashing the buttons down to a tiny size, have a scroller button. Personally, I think this would be confusing and make the window list even less useful with lots of windows open as it would take a lot of work to find a window ... but you should open another bug and start a discussion there. So, I'm going to mark this bug as a duplicate of #125023 - you should add your views to bug #125023 and open a new libwnck bug for the scroller thing. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 125023 ***