Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 178614
RFE - desktop - move workspace switcher and rubbish bin to top panel
Last modified: 2009-12-14 19:08:26 EST
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050923 Fedora/1.7.12-1.5.1 Description of problem: There is a waste of screen space with the top panel between the popular apps icons and the power/clock displays. probably 400x20 pixels. Since many apps can be open at once, filling the bottom panel, it would make sense to move the workspace switcher and rubbish bin to the top, next to the notification? area /clock. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. default desktop install. 2. login and view desktop Actual Results: note that 1/5 of screen width at bottom panel taken up with desktop switcher/bin. Expected Results: the available space in the top panel to the left of the clock is used instead for the bin/workspace switcher. holding the mouse over the running applications bar should provide a textual hint to the user: "desktop applications that a running". Or this area would not be become obvious as to it's purpose. It could even state "no desktop applications currently running" when you first login/have closed everything on that workspace. Additional info: Why: 1. clicking a workspace square takes you to a totally different desktop, ie different applications will be running in the bottom panel. Hence, the workspace switcher is really a pre-doing work selection. When you change the workspace, all of the screen except the top panel would then change. But the workspace switcher is not different for each workspace. It would be far more logical (imho) to place it in the wasted space next to the clock. 2. The rubbish bin is really a per desktop rather than a per workspace item; it is not different between different workspaces. It would be more logical to include it once on the top panel. This still leaves room for more launcher icons that the user might want regular access to, but improves the logic of the design. I am not sure about the show desktop=minimize all apps button, but probably makes sense for it to be up the top to (it's a function that applies to the currently selected workspace. -- While I never liked the default layout (and so move the panel to be just one thicker panel at the top), I think that some improvements could be made, as listed above, users might then put up with a default desktop layout rather than waste time customising it.
Fedora Core 5 and Fedora Core 6 are, as we're sure you've noticed, no longer test releases. We're cleaning up the bug database and making sure important bug reports filed against these test releases don't get lost. It would be helpful if you could test this issue with a released version of Fedora or with the latest development / test release. Thanks for your help and for your patience. [This is a bulk message for all open FC5/FC6 test release bugs. I'm adding myself to the CC list for each bug, so I'll see any comments you make after this and do my best to make sure every issue gets proper attention.]
I would still say that not wasting / making the most of screen space should be a design goal. This is more true now that more displays are being used that are of 16:9 or wider aspect, and with large pixel counts across the screen. Why buy a bigger/wider screen, if those parts of it are just going to sit idle ? Whether you are editing text or spreadsheet, or viewing a pdf {most of the ones I see are formatted portrait mode}, in terms of space usage, the aim of the desktop should be to show as much of the document as possible. Vertical height is more effective than horizontal width. {eg the menus in Evince 0.8.2 in the default fedora desktop layout - leaves space for the actual document of 1004x626 when on a 1024x768 display} 140 px lost in useful height. This is especially true for documents {pdfs} that use two colums within each page. A have flipped a little on the "show desktop" and "trash" icons: It makes them easier to use to be able to randomly push the mouse in the diagonal corner, click {even without looking}, and have that function activated. Same is true for the positioning of the apps menus and the volume icon {although sometimes this ends up to the left of the clock display - especially after logoff/logon.} Perhaps a future enhancement would be for them to sit on small stub panels , so that more of the screen height can be used.
Note that maintenance for Fedora 7 will end 30 days after the GA of Fedora 9.
Created attachment 303731 [details] example of "real world" usage part 1 Again, applies to F8 and F9, because no changes were made. However, closing INSUFFICIENT_WILL_TO_MAKE_AN_IMPROVEMENT is reasonable ;-) I am still keen to see the workspace switcher be positioned by default between the Applications Places System and the default app start icons. It makes far more use of the screen real estate, and makes more sense from the logic of user interaction with workspaces. In fact waste of screen space is worse if you use a wide screen monitor; that 20px*1920px along the bottom of the screen is a bit of a waste. I'd much rather my A4 pdf document I'm reading to by in a slight easier to read font {=larger} and still be able to see the whole page {portrait}. Alas, since we are packaging upstream this change to default would probably need to occur in the upstream project ?
Created attachment 303732 [details] workspace2
Created attachment 303733 [details] workspace3
Created attachment 303734 [details] workspace4
Created attachment 303737 [details] black shows the workspace bits that change between workspaces. notice the parts that stay the same when a user switches workspaces in the scenario where the switcher is in the upper left of the display. When you want something to start on a different workspace, it would make sense to click that workspace, then the shortcut icon next to it that represents the app you want to start. This is imho an improvment on mousing to almost the bottom right corner, then to the top left to select an app to start.