Re: [9fans] Colors and other fun

["Jack Johnson" <knapjack@gmail.com>]

On 6/27/07, Francisco J Ballesteros <nemo@lsub.org> wrote:
> The 90% times I use overlapping windows is just to switch between some windows
> that I want to have most of screen space (while used).
>
> Despite being a mosaic (instead of windows), I still would like to
> pick one window, zoom it  so that it gets more screen space, and
> then zoom out to get the screen as it was.

I'm a Mac user, and my regular machine is a 12" iBook.  Everyone asks
how I survive with such a small screen, and my answer is Expose.

My real desk is messy.  My windowspace is messy.  But, with my
windowspace I have a hot corner: the upper right activates Expose
across all applications.  I throw the cursor up to the corner, pick my
nearly full-screen window by it's content from among the choices, and
keep going.  One mouse move and one click.

I used to think virtual Post-It notes were idiotic.  Now I love them.
I have a dozen on my virtual desk, never lose any, can instantly see
all of them simultaneously and just as instantly obscure them all when
my locus of attention changes.

Though options like the Windows taskbar or the rio menu exist, picking
a window from its visual cues seems to be faster than making the
(quick) context switch from working to reading the window titles to
working again.    Even with terminal windows the context of it's last
state gives me instant clues as to its content, where the name of the
window provides little.

I also find that, like the tiled window scenario, I rarely resize my
windows anymore.  Expose made the iffy idea of overlapping windows
much more efficient.

All still relatively 2D.  There's a lot left to explore before we
start adding dimensions for the gloss.  I still believe a tiled
workspace is superior, but who says we can't naturalize or optimize
the use of that space?  The acme-inspired larswm has a feature where
you can swap windows in the tiled space, so you can have a relatively
large workpane and swap in your current window/task without hiding
your current task.  Without better cues (and here, I suppose animation
would work, but who wants the overhead) the result is functional but a
little jarring.  Also, there are times when the other columns don't
help you with the task at hand, and it would be nice to have them
easily adapt to your current needs.

Francisco's workflow of wanting or needing to maximize the use of the
available pixels for the task at hand is a common one, and somewhere
out there is likely a great solution for incorporating that workflow
style in a tiled environment (namely acme).  In the past, both with
Oberon and with acme I found myself vertically expanding workspaces in
a larger left-hand pane and keeping the right-hand column for
text/tools/scratchpads/commands, but depending on the stacking of the
left-hand workspaces changing context between tasks could be
cumbersome.

Acme-addicts, what's your workflow like?  How many of you are on
pixel-challenged monitors?

-Jack