A GNOME 3.0 plan

I like the idea of the 'GnomeShell' quite a bit, but have never been really all that excited about the 'Social Desktop' metaphore. I guess I tend to be quite a bit more conservative about depending on third party network services. But each person has different needs and such.

Oh, in the Gnome shell consider some way to group applications to their own virtual desktop. In OS X each application gets it's own layer on the desktop with the menu bar always located in a consistant spot on their desktop. This has many advantages over the clutter that you tend to get with the MS Windows-style desktop. Linux has already had virtual desktops, but they tend to be confusing to new users and application windows tend to get lost in the jumble.. the OS X style is much more intuative.

Before with X Windows this would of been impossible to do correctly, but with Compiz and it's ability to do multiple layers (if you have a widget layer, why not have a dozen layers?). So instead of a 'spinning cube' or 'virtual desktop wall' concept you would have a 'layers of transparent pages' concept. So that while you have unfettered access to all the application windows of the current application your working in you always have easy visual reference and single-click access to other applications without depending on the alt-tab, click-drag, or pager applet features.

Even if it is not possible to group application windows in that manner, I still think it would be a very clever way to expand the usable desktop space through the use of virtual desktops and whatnot.