Re: [wmii] Re: Dockapp problem

On Mon, May 22, 2006 at 07:14:16PM -0400, Kris Maglione wrote:
> On Mon, May 22, 2006 at 07:10:21PM +0200, Anselm R. Garbe wrote:
> >Fixed height, but variable width. Fixed height is good,
> >because you are not forced to see these dockapps in any
> >view. No need for scrolling complexity.
>
> I don't think that there should be a special case for this, but I do think
> that wmii should try to guess an initial height or width from what the
> client wants and let you resize it as you see fit. I'm thinking of apps
> like Inferno, here, that only have one size (for good reason), no matter
> how you try to size them. Their preferred size should be taken into
> consideration, but not enforced.
>
> I also think that the client should be able to order the dock apps
> horizontally or vertically, depending on what the user chooses. It's easy
> enough to have a narrow column on one side of the screen and, since screens
> are wider than they are tall, and have bars at the top and bottom anyway,
> it makes a certain amount of sense to put them there. I don't see this
> option adding any significant complexity to the design.

I agree that fixed height is bad, because if the dockwindow is
the only window of a column this won't work. Anyway, if there
are at least 2 windows, the window should always _prefer_ the
best-fit height, which means not a higher height, than the
height of its biggest dockapp (or if there are several rows, the
height of all rows). Sure, the user should do what he wants, if
it doesn't fits (e.g. to many clients in a column), it doesn't
fits, and several dockapps are hidden.

At the layout question: no I neither favorize a horizontal-only
nor a vertical-only or a horiz/vert-distinct layout, I think
grid is the best for such kind of dock window (and wmii should
dynamically arrange dockapps in the order they have been started,
not more complexity). If the dockapps don't fit into 1 row, a
new is filled from left to right.

Regards,

-- 
 Anselm R. Garbe  ><><  www.ebrag.de  ><><  GPG key: 0D73F361