On 9/4/06, Nicolas Roard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[snip]
a simple adaptation to get the famous jesse's concept 01 file manager:
http://www.jesseross.com/clients/gnustep/ui/concepts/01/ui.png
After looking at the mockup again,
I start to feel it is not a bad idea to have the vertical panel on
the right (or left).
It fits better with default GNUstep vertical menu.
Therefore, we don't need a horizontal menu bar on the top
and a dock/panel/whatever on the bottom.
Here are two arguments:
1. Horizontal vs vertical menu:
Although we can do horizontal menu like mac,
we are not going to have regular applications
(Gnome/KDE/OpenOffice.org/Firefox)
put their menu on our menu bar.
Therefore, user still have two different kind of menu style most of time.
In this case, it is really doesn't matter for us to have a horizontal
or vertical menu because it will just not fit with regular x
window applications.
So discussion should be focused only on GNUstep applications.
Then, to me, boht menu style has its own pros and cons.
I don't see horizontal menu is much better than vertical menu.
2. Screen space.
Although most people like menu/panel occupying top and bottom
space horizontally,
let's think about what kind of space we usually leave empty when
we use computer.
I think the right and left space is always left empty because the document
goes from top to bottom.
That's why we use vertical scrollbar more than horizontal one.
We can argue that professional users would like to have wider screen
and it is definitely true.
In this case, they will prefer to hide most of these UI components anyway.
For regular usage (web browsing and checking email),
left and right space are less used mostly.
Therefore, to me, the vertical panel/dock looks more reasonable to me.
So if we have a vertical panel, it looks better to have vertical menu.
The panel can also be hidden.
I remember in openlook interface, there is a small pin on the corner of panel
so that you can fix it on the screen.
That's the easier way to set the auto-hiden setting of panel.
Now, let's look at the panel on the mockup.
On the top, we have "launcher", which store links to applications on
the harddisk.
Then we have "workspaces switcher", followed by "taskbar" showing
running applications.
The rest space can be used by any other additions.
I only want to discuss the "launcher" and "taskbar" here.
These two are traditionally the ones on the panel/dock/whatever
but people tend to mix them up, as WindowMaker.
There are two styles of environments.
One is window-based and the other is application-based.
Microsoft windows is the window-based,
and mac and GNUstep is application-based,
For window-based environment, you have "launcher" and "taskbar" separated.
If you click the launcher, a new window shows up no matter whether there
is any same kind of window running.
If you click the taskbar, a running window shows up.
Therefore, you can have web browser on launcher and on taskbar.
For application-based environment, you have "launcher" and "taskbar" together.
If the web browser is not running and you click it, it launches the
web browser.
If the web browser is running and you click it,
it actives the running web browser.
Therefore, you can only have one icon of web browser on the
dock/panel/whatever.
"Taskbar" always active the running applications on both environments.
But on window-base environment, same web browser can have many
windows running.
Each window shows on taskbar.
On application-based environment, taskbar only shows one icon
no matter how many windows of web browser are running.
When it actives the application, all the running windows show up.
As for launcher,
In window-based environment, clicking launcher create new window.
In application-base environment, clicking launcher actives running application
or launch that application if it is not running.
Since GNUstep is application-based, there is no reason to have
"launcher" and "taskbar" separated.
So how about that we have a vertical panel on the side
for menulet, dock, workspace switcher, whatever
and drop the horizontal menu bar ?
Yen-Ju
Would be really neat :-P
Anyway, we should really start working on our file manager, and
openspace is a good base.
Cheers,
--
Nicolas Roard
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly
by." -- Douglas Adams
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