Josh Saddler - Latest comments on A very minimal desktop

In response to: A very minimal desktop

black silence [Visitor] — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 12:28:06 +0000

when using compiz, you can hide your panel with the widget plugin, thus making it invisible when you don't need it, but still have a systray

my desktop is clean except for awn. starting apps works with hotkeys, gmrun (or gnome-do) and sometimes the menu

In response to: A very minimal desktop

Dieter_be [Visitor] — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 11:25:20 +0000

launchers != window list, even though they can be on the same panel.

IMO, the more you can see what you must see (programs you're working in) and the less you see what you don't really need (window list, launchers, ..) the more useful and less distracting a desktop is.

Like Colin I don't keep launchers on my Desktop (in fact I keep almost nothing there) because I almost never see the desktop. I keep my panels as clean as possible too. For launching programs I rely on gnome-do as much as I can, and who needs window lists when you *know* which apps you have open, only an alt-tab or virtual desktop away...

I will take a good look at dmenu, it looks pretty cool. Curious how it compares to gnome-do.

In response to: A very minimal desktop

Josh Saddler [Member] — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 03:47:18 +0000

@Colin:

Well, I imagine most keyboard jockeys don't have to worry about sorting windows, as they already have fast ways of getting to the window they want, something besides the good ol' alt-tab. I imagine dmenu would be even handier.

I notice that when I have a lot of windows open, the panel starts getting more and more useless, since the taskbar rapidly runs out of room to display each task legibly.

This setup is really more of an experiment than anything else; a way to test how well desktop icon launching works. I think for it to be most effective, a reserved space would have to be put in place at the top of the screen, something that always shows at least part of the icons. In other words . . . a panel-like space.

I normally run with a single panel and several launcher icons, but the panel really does get crowded, given all the other things like trays, sensors-applets, status scripts, etc. You can see my usual setup in my other screenshots: http://dev.gentoo.org/~nightmorph/misc/screens

In response to: A very minimal desktop

Colin [Visitor] — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:05:02 +0000

That's nice, but IMHO doesn't replace the panel. My desktop tends to be hidden under 30 windows, whereas my panels are not, so I can always click the launchers in the panels without messing around with all these windows.