[openbeos] Re: Some ideas about windows

  • From: Jeremiah Poling <jeremiah@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2002 15:44:42 -0500

that's not exactly what I had in mind, but a very interesting concept.

the thing that brought this to mind was two different situations that
I encounter on a regular basis:
I'm reading e-mail and a webpage while talking to someone using
an IM client.

I want to be able to have as much of the screen in use as possible with
minimum effort. I would like to have maybe a keyboard shortcut to select
which window is the focal point while still allowing the others to be viewed.

I would leave the windows in the same positions relative to one another
but they would change size depending on which I was wanting to focus on.

(I'm at work now and don't have time, but I might make some visual aids
when I get home this evening)

for example:
Imagine that you're reading an e-mail full screen (maximized)
and there is a reference to a website. you open the website and want to be
able to see it while you finish reading the e-mail so you select your
"2 windows" layout and put the web browser into the smaller window and
the e-mail reader into the larger one.

you continue reading the e-mail and the website and you decide that you
like the example on the website and want to use it in the book-report/letter/program
you're working on. so you open your editor and select your "3 window"
layout with the editor in the main position and the website in the
secondary position and the e-mail in the final position.

once you finish you close the editor and revert to the "2 window" layout

A friend wants to chat on IM.. you select the "3 window" layout and place the
windows in the order you want then (by importance) you can still read your
e-mail and browse the web during lags in the conversation without having to
constantly resize your windows.and at any point you can flop from one layout
to the next.

Wow... that was long winded.. ;-)

I like your idea as well tho.

Jeremiah

On Friday, October 18, 2002, at 03:05 PM, James wrote:

Jeremiah, what you suggested immediately gave me ideas.  Let me explain
them, and let me know if this is what you were thinking:

If you've ever used a split window view in a text editor, then you know what
I'm thinking. Imagine an application running maximized. There are two
small tabs along the edge of the screen, one on the bottom and one on the
right hand side. By dragging these into the screen, you would divide the
screen in half. For example, you could drag the bottom tab to the middle of
the screen and have two rows. Then in the bottom row you could drag its
right tab to the middle, and you end up with two columns in the bottom row.
Then you could have a miniwindow with titles of the applications and drag
their names into each cell to place it there.

Also, some WM's have desktops to keep windows seperated. Maybe the Window
Layout would keep track of all the different available layouts, and treat
them as if they were themselves windows (perhaps always maximized). You
could have a "communications" layout, which had an email client in the top
row, and an address book in the bottom row, and an IM client in a right
column beside the other two. You could minimize the Communications Layout,
and all three would minimize. Next time you restore it, they all come up in
the same positions.

Is this close to what you were thinking?





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