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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Default kicker postion
From:       Florian Graessle <flograessle () uni ! de>
Date:       2004-06-06 21:27:48
Message-ID: 20040606231105.4EC2.FLOGRAESSLE () uni ! de
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First: I've been using a taskbar/kicker at the top for more than three
years now and talked it over with Tina on several occasions. I think it
very useful.

Second: Reading Tina's proposal I think she didn't mention the MacOS bar.
She solely wrote about and proposed the kicker at the top and a main
orientation to the right.

My thoughts about the kicker at the top: After starting an application
through the KMenu (which I actually got rid of since I'm using grouped
kicker entries with sub entries, but that's another story...) I don't
have to move my mouse to the top of the screen to access the
application's menubar. The mouse is already there. That's a great plus
in my opinion, at least I don't want to miss it.

The same applies to switching from window to window using the taskbar.
When I "cycle" through maximized windows I don't have to move my eyes or
even my head (I have a pretty large TFT screen) down to the kicker,
activate a kicker entry, move them up again to recognize the content of
the window, move my eyes down again, activate another window, move my
eyes up, and so on. That's very annoying. With the kicker at the top of
the screen and the scpecific window menus and toolbars at the top of
each window I have everything in view at once. The titlebar functions as
a visible divider to not mix up toolbar buttons with the ones of kicker.

Close, maximize and minimize are still accesible pretty fast. They still
reside in the top right corner. There's just a slight extra movement of
a few pixels to pass the kicker bar in addition to the mouse movement
one already has to do. You forget that you already have to finetune the
mouse movement once you have headed top right.

> To summarize, move your cursor to :
> 1 Top edge     : access Window menu bar
> 2 Top-right    : window operation buttons (when Bug #78950 resolved)
> 3 Bottom       : activate tasks in taskbar
> 4 Bottom-left  : KMenu
> 5 Bottom-right : kicker hide button (or clock)
> 6 Left         : Activate universal sidebar (but actually it resize
>                  screen, so it's a lot annoying and slow)
> 7 Right        : I haven't anything !!!! KSmoothDock ? ;-)
> Your proposal would remove 2,3,4,5 !


> * Have everythings on top can look uggly :
> - MAC bar
> - kicker
> - Window title bar
> - Window toolbar
> All those bars would be too close together.

The MAC bar is no issue in Tina's proposal. The window title bar and
toolbar are already close together. The kicker would be clearly divided from
the window toolbar by the highly contrasting window title bar.

Other than proposals usually made on this list, a kicker at the top is
already possible. Why don't you just try it out for a few days and
report what you experienced?

I really don't know why people struggle so much against a kicker/taskbar
at the top of the screen. I have heard lots of complaint about the mere
idea. But very seldomly did I meet anyone who actually tried it out
thoroughly. When someone finally did, he didn't switch back...

Florian



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