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Why GNOME refugees love Xfce (Register)Why GNOME refugees love Xfce (Register)Posted Nov 10, 2011 20:22 UTC (Thu) by deepfire (subscriber, #26138)In reply to: Why GNOME refugees love Xfce (Register) by drag Parent article: Why GNOME refugees love Xfce (Register)
Let me tell you what I mean.
I have a 6x6 grid virtual desktop layout. Most of the desktops are occupied by full screen windows -- either terminals or Emacs frames.
The planar layout allows me to use my spatial intuition, which, in the end, allows me to manage many more windows.
It's simply possible for me to remember the layout of things on a 6x6 grid.
It is beyond possibility for me to remember anything about a fixed 1x36 line, especially when the elements come and go. It is also vastly less practical to move in such a layout.
Feel free to ask any further questions.
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Why GNOME refugees love Xfce (Register) Posted Nov 10, 2011 22:28 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> The planar layout allows me to use my spatial intuition, which, in the end, allows me to manage many more windows.
Never you mind the spatial intuition - as is, gnome shell won't even let your _see_ where your stuff is.
It's a bit like this. You have drawers with socks, undies, shirts etc. Normally, each of the drawers has a picture on it of what's in it and generally, drawers are not interchanged, unless you decide to rearrange.
Gnome shell version if this is that you are not allowed to put pictures on your drawers, your drawers get occasionally reshuffled (depending on how you decide to dress in the morning) and obviously, you actually need to look into each one to see what's in it every single time you need something.
The rationale is that this is preventing you from becoming a compulsive clothes changer. :-)
Why GNOME refugees love Xfce (Register) Posted Nov 11, 2011 14:30 UTC (Fri) by mstefani (subscriber, #31644) [Link]
That's exactly why Gnome Shell didn't work for me as it destroys the visual model of the desktop in my head.
I visually know where my window is. I don't have to search for it (ALT-TAB is searching) I just go there: keypress to the desired workspace and mouse move to the desired window (mostly tiled terminals). Add to that focus follows mouse and I've switched windows fast and without any cognitive effort.
Why GNOME refugees love Xfce (Register) Posted Nov 11, 2011 17:15 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Quite. I'm not sure it's even a visual model: I do exactly the same, and I have no visual memory at all to the extent that I have trouble recognising myself in a mirror. I think we're using the same neural system we use to navigate around physical spaces: switching to my work mail Emacs window feels similar mentally to walking to the shops (only it takes much less time, <0.2s rather than five minutes: nonetheless, I know the route from wherever I am and I know the surroundings). This system is evolutionarily ancient (google 'hippocampus place cells') and very efficient, so piggybacking on it seems like a good idea for user-interface metaphors.
Now one of the principal attributes of physical spaces is that they do not rearrange themselves spontaneously as you walk through them. Thus, we should probably try to avoid doing that here, too. I can't think of *anything* in the real world that a spontaneously reordering list could be modelled as. (Windows's alt-tab lists are just as bad. Watching users peck laboriously through them is painful.)
Why GNOME refugees love Xfce (Register) Posted Nov 17, 2011 12:56 UTC (Thu) by sorpigal (subscriber, #36106) [Link]
This thread describes how I manage windows on virtual desktops, too. Funny that now the spatial-memory argument is working against GNOME, hmm....
It's easy to remember where my web browser is (always the same desktop) and where my irc client is (always the same, different desktop) and where I left the GIMP the last time I used it... and since my pager is in the corner of the screen it's always a fast mouse+click to get to any app. I have a hard time imagining an improvement.
Why GNOME refugees love Xfce (Register) Posted Nov 18, 2011 8:02 UTC (Fri) by deepfire (subscriber, #26138) [Link]
I think it is beyond possibility, that none of the Gnome 2 developers were alienated by Gnome 3 making this model of interaction impossible.
Why GNOME refugees love Xfce (Register) Posted Nov 22, 2011 5:29 UTC (Tue) by Zizzle (guest, #67739) [Link]
Another +1 here.
Static work space allocations (you always know where your email client is) which is only a click away is a massive win.
I also bind workspace navigation to Ctrl+<Arrow> so I can do it with one hand.
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