On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 11:52:40AM -0700, John Andersen wrote:
On 9/21/2010 8:34 AM, Oliver Kullmann wrote:
I guess at home I have 10 windows open per virtual desktop (using the maximal number 20 of them). I can't imagine that such possibilities of dragging windows around in the pager will ever be useful for me (sure, who knows), while it might cause windows suddenly to "disappear".
I can't imagine how such a workspace could possibly be useful.
How can you remember what is on 20 different desktops each of which might have 10 applications, for 200 total applications running at the same time?
As explained in my other e-mail, the point is ("exactly") that I don't have to remember anything, since I will be *reminded* by the "physical" structure of the virtual desktops.
You must spend more time launching FINDING stuff than it would take to relaunch it.
The open applications are files, directories, documents (pdf, ps, dvi, html), notes, terminals (I'm running experiments, and this can make for a large number of konsoles open). For example, I might think (that is, I have to :-(), alright, need to spend some time now on PhD admission (my administration task in the department). It is semi-badly organised by the university via web pages, and currently it is most convenient to have one window open for each of the applications (containing web forms, where I enter information as it comes). I try to keep them in order, and so if I now want to process something, then I go to the taskbar, maximise the first konqueror-window, and work on that thing; once finished, the window is closed.
Hey, don't get me wrong, huge thanks for testing the limits of the desktop system, and if the only complaint is that its tricky to move things around, that would suggest KDE4 is a huge success in stability.
I have Suse 9.2 (with whatever KDE version came with out) now running on my laptop for, say, 5 years, and I was very satisfied with it. Now the laptop gets old (actually, can only run very slowly, also after having cleaned the fan etc; it's rather funny), and I need something new. Sure, wireless-stuff and such things have improved, but w.r.t. my core business I can't see progress yet. With KDE 3.x I always had the feeling that roughly they are moving in "my" direction, but that got completely lost with 4.x, apparently a complete change of direction (I see it in our Linux lab, where I run some courses, and where they run through various Suse-versions). My theory is that the virtual desktops are the key point of true desktop development: with KDE 4.x somehow the windows-world got dominant, where the ideal is to have one big window surrounded by small gadgets (the daily noise, all the chatter etc., which I have just heard about, but never use). It's a kind of "false parallelism", there is the dictator (your "bad job", the external control), and there are the escapes (consumerism, that is, chatting, videos, ...). While "true parallelism" enables really different worlds on your computer, click, and new universes open (kind of). How many hours is everybody spending with the desktop. So I feel rather frustrated with what I regard as wrong developments, where I actually think that it wouldn't be so complicated to do what I have in mind. Alas, I'm really spending day and night to be able to do my research, and don't have time to invest in desktop development. I tried to start student projects, but it's too hard (no documentation out there on KDE; even students rather willing and skilled gave up on such topics). So well, got a bit longer, since, as you can see, I actually think that there are relevant issues here. Oliver -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org