Re: [wmii] Re: layout per tag.

Denis Grelich wrote:
> On Wed, 09 Aug 2006 15:55:19 +0200
> Kai Grossjohann <kai.grossjohann_AT_verizonbusiness.com> wrote:
>
>
>> Denis Grelich wrote:
>>
>>> I have to disagree completely. There should be no fixed layouts in
>>> the window manager, in any case. There were reasons this was dropped
>>> in earlier wmii versions.
>>>
>> Well, but what if someone wants them?
>>
>
> Then that someone should /stop/ wanting them. If a method has flaws and
> can be easily superseded by another method, it's obviously time to
> re-learn.
>
I stand corrected. What I said is not right.

I do think, however, that it is useful to have some things
pre-populated. For example, if I always read mail, then I'd like a
"mail" view that is always visible (present?), even when I haven't
started my mail reader yet.

>>> Rather, the applications should provide for
>>> enough hints (and the wm should listen to them, of course, while
>>> placing them into their views) to dynamically create usable layouts.
>>> Fixed layouts are a totally wrong approach to this problem.
>>>
>> It is impossible for the application to provide those hints because
>> different people have different preferences. For example, I have
>> Thunderbird fully maximized in a single column. And when I create a
>> compose window, I want to open a second column with that compose
>> window.
>>
>> Perhaps others prefer a single column with two windows in it. Some of
>> those people want default layout, some want stacked layout.
>>
>
> You firstly have to realise what you really want. Of course you could
> make something one hundred percent customizable, but how would that
> really help? It would make things much, much more complicated, and in
> the end, you spend more time with customizing than with using your
> application.
>
Of course, every user has to find out for themselves how much they want
to configure. They don't need to configure anything, of course, then
they get the current behavior.

But others, like me, could say: if a Thunderbird message composition
window appears, then ensure that the current view has (at least?) two
columns and put the composition window into the second column.

This is not a hypothetical example: if such configuration was possible,
I'd use it.

> And then, what's the main difference between a human brain and a
> computer, no matter how powerful? A human brain is /intelligent,/ and
> the worst thing a computer can be on this planet is /smart/ (which
> again causes lots of pain in the human brain mentioned above ...)
> A human can easily adapt to something unfamiliar. Thus it is much
> more feasible solution to write software that behaves in one
> well-defined and nice way that people can adapt to and work with
> productively. Some customization is surely needed, as people have
> different interests and tasks, but this should not be applied where it
> does not really help anyone.
>
Right. However, we seem to have different opinions on which amount of
customization is desirable :-)

>> I think what's needed is a program similar in spirit to kstart. One
>> would say "wmiistart $OPTIONS $APPLICATION" and the $OPTIONS would say
>> how to tag the application, and what the column layout should be and
>> stuff.
>>
>> And then one would want to have hooks in the wmiirc event loop that
>> allows one to do different things for different applications: open a
>> new view for them, open a new colum for them, re-use an existing
>> column, change the column layout, ...
>>
>
> Talking of complexity ...
> You didn't mean all of this seriously, did you? oO
>
What makes you think I don't? There are window managers which do this,
and I've used them.

Kai
Received on Fri Aug 11 2006 - 14:40:42 UTC