On Tuesday 27 December 2011 11:06:48 William Case wrote:
I want to go forward not back. I would like to see Gnome get rid of
all
panels, task bars, and extraneous doodads in my work spaces. I want
instead to use dockers, multiple dockers that I can call up by short cut
key, mouse motion or from the activities space.
I would like the dockers to have all the properties of a file, an icon,
a launcher and a panel or several different panels.
I want to be able to create a new different docker on the Activities
window, place launchers and files in the docker and name it. That way I
can have a main application running in a work space but also a docker
that contains subsidiary programs that I use often while working in that
application.
I can then design or load dockers that would have applications or what
used to be applets that are apropos to the type of work I was doing
and/or the main application I was using. I would have several different
kinds of dockers these created by me to pick and choose from.
I would like the dockers to be made visible on my desktop/workspace the
same way I can make a main program visible. I.E. drag and drop it in a
workspace in the activities window.
I would like the docker to appear on my workspace as a small icon that
could be opened like a file to see all of the subsidiary applications or
functions I have available to me. I would like the docker not to be
restricted to a bar shape, but be able to re-size and re-shape it much
the same way as a application window by grabbing the edges or bottom
right corner.
There are many other considerations that could go into this design, but
essentially I would like to get rid of the desktop metaphor and instead
make my workspaces project and work oriented.
I do more than one kind of thing on my computer. I want to be able to
easily write an article in LibreOffice using all my tools such as
dictionary, thesaurus and character map for writing. Then, say, switch
to something completely unrelated like working with music or photographs
in another workspace and have a docker for each of those that contained
music subsidiary applications, or browsing the internet. I would like
to have a docker where I kept all my system tools. The menu would serve
me as the place to find the items I wanted to put in my various dockers
or to store programs seldom used.
Is anybody interested in this kind of concept and/or discussion?
Well, all that (and more!) actually already exists --- it's called "KDE4".
:-D
Without going into any details, essentially everything you have described
above can be achieved with some basic customizations of the KDE's
"Activities"
infrastructure, which was designed precisely for such purposes (multiple
working environments, context-dependent desktops, customizable
docks/panels/launchers, etc.).
Why are you trying to use Gnome3 to (re)create this kind of environment?
Best, :-)
Marko