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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: taskbar grouping, off by default please.
From:       m_elter () t-online ! de (Matthias Elter)
Date:       2001-05-16 13:56:50
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On Wednesday 16 May 2001 14:44, David Faure wrote:
> On Wednesday 16 May 2001 15:15, Matthias Elter wrote:
> > On Wednesday 16 May 2001 14:51, Ralf Nolden wrote:
> > > The toplevel mode is not the default either :-)
> > > BTW this feature was exactly thought for people that use apps with this
> > > behavoir like Gimp. Gimp is one of the most widely used apps on Linux
> > > and this will stay this way for the user. We're all talking from the
> > > *Developers* point of view here, but not from the users. We should
> > > accept that the users have different preferences and that we as
> > > developers like it *different* which requires US to deselect features,
> > > not all users IMHO. This is selfish if we all claim "let's put this off
> > > by default because I can't handle it". We'll end of that we can do
> > > everything but nobody's using it because we put it off by default.
> > > Please follow tackat's suggestion to leave it on to see if we get
> > > complaints by the users.
> >
> > Discussion closed, it will remain the default for Beta 1 to get more user
> > feedback. Up to now I have not received any real complaints about this
> > feature. Only one user who did not like it was unable to find the
> > configuration option to turn it off. But I don't feel religious about
> > this feature. The implementation was motivated by popular request. People
> > were asking for task grouping. If it turns out that it confuses more
> > users than it makes happy it will be off by default in KDE 2.2 final.
>
> Sorry to give my voice after you say the discussion is closed ...
> But I'd like to point that it's not only all or nothing.
> What emerged from the discussion is also that with few windows
> grouping sucks (if I have only two konsoles why shouldn't they be
> two separate buttons), and that with many windows, it helps sorting things.
> So I guess a third solution after "default is on" and "default is off",
> would be: improving the feature so that the grouping only happens when
> there are enough windows (i.e. when there isn't enough space).

Dynamic grouping based on the amount of similar tasks or based on the free 
space on the taskbar is what I had in mind when I implemented the new 
taskbar. The problem is (tackat made me aware of it some time ago) that this 
is even more confusing for users because it is not trivial to understand when 
and why tasks are grouped. So I will not implement this for now but maybe 
reconsider it after beta1.

Matthias

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