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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: New panel layout
From:       Gábor_Lehel <illissius () gmail ! com>
Date:       2005-08-29 17:29:08
Message-ID: 9cfeadb80508291029fea25d5 () mail ! gmail ! com
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On 8/29/05, Uno Engborg <uno@webworks.se> wrote:
> The default height of the panel is too high. It allows for two rows of
> applications in the task bar, and two rows of desktops in the pager.
> This doesn't make use of  the fact that screen edges according Fits law
> is very easy targets for the mouse. I would therefore suggest changing
> the default size of the bottom panel to small.
> 
> Making the bottom of the screen panel small, would apart from making the
> items in it more easily clickable, also make more room for  application
> windows as  documents tend to be portrait shaped rather than landscape
> shaped.
> 
> This leaves us with another problem. The pager would now take too much
> space and not leave enough room for the task bar to show open
> applications.. To solve that I would suggest  removing  everything  but
> the K-menu, the pager and the system tray.
> 
> Now we need to find a place for the things removed. The obvious solution
> would be to do like Gnome and add a panel at the top of the screen as
> well, but that wouldn't work well in KDE as some people use a MacOS-like
> central application menu at the top of the screen.
Why would this be a problem? Two small panels works great with the
MacOS-style menubar (two long applets for two long panels), on top I
currently have KMenu, menubar, systray, clock, and on the bottom
desktop access, pager, launch buttons and taskbar.
I dislike the default panel as well, but for a different reason
--because the application buttons take up so much space, when they're
among the less important things on the panel.

> I would therefore
> suggest using a new panel to the center left of the screen.  That panel
> could also hold the icons for the trash and the system that normally
> resides on the desktop usually hidden by open windows. This panel could
> be of size large, to make the icons easily visible or clickable. By
> making the panel centered there would be less risk that it would
> interfere with the bottom panel or MacOS-like application menus if
> turned on.
> 
> Making this side panel large would make it possible to show time using
> an analog clock instead of a digital one.
> If you look at peoples choice of  wristwatch you will find that most
> people prefer analog time presentation even though they usually are more
> expensive.  So, why shouldn't their computer clock be analog by default
> as well.
> 
> One problem:
> Panels at the left and right side of the screens can't be easily
> unhidden as their unhide button will be hidden by the
> bottom panel.  I would suggest making  the unhide button  a thin button
> of the full length of the panel. That way
> it would not be covered by other panels. The hide button could remain as
> it is except for the direction of the arrow.
> This problem with hidden hide buttons should probably be fixed
> regardless if we chose to change the default
> panel layout.
> 
> 
> Regards
> Uno Engborg
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> kde-usability mailing list
> kde-usability@kde.org
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-usability
> 


-- 
Work is punishment for failing to procrastinate effectively.
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