Re: app wrappers and gworkspace

[stefan]

Hi,

>> Having wrappers, hacks or any other kind of magic will still be just a
>> hack or magic. what is really needed is an grpahical tool/application
>> that manages applications. Existing examples of such tools are: "Start
>> menu" and its clones or Program Manager from ancient windows versions.
>> The later one is better example of the management app - at least the
>> original idea was not so bad. That is kind of application that user
>> should use instead of file manager. File manager should be used
>> sparingly, only when one wants to manage and share files.
>
> well you could put your applications in the tabbed shelf, often accessed
> items in the shelf that every single gworkspace window has. Or you
> should be able to dock them around.
>
> I don't want more things from gworkspace. You are always free to make a
> new, external application as a launcher.

I second this. GWorkspace is for file system navigation. Maybe it could
be possible to extend it to recognize .desktop files. Double-clicking
on a .desktop file could start the application.

> I myself on os-x don't have anything external. I have 2, 3 apps in the
> dock (I think about monster-docks people sometimes have) just mail,
> console and maybe a browser, depending on the computer.

i guess you would consider my doc to be a monster :-) but it's a
friendly one :-)

<big-snip>

I used launch-bar on osx for quite a while and it's really great
(have a look at http://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/). Having
something like this for GNUstep would be really great. It could be
used for application management, simply type in a key-word (part of
the applications name, a category, whatever) into the bar's text field
and launchbar will show a drop-down-list with all matching apps.
launchbar can also manage your documents, but i mainly used it to
launch applications. It's incredibly fast. If i want to open word
processor i just press Control-L which will put the focus on the bar.
Next, i type 'Text' and see a list of text-related applications. I select
one from the list and press enter (or use the mouse for selection).
launchbar recognizes what's your preferred application for 'Text' is
and will show it at the first place in the list.

There is also a (free) version for NeXTstep. Maybe we can convince them
to give us the source or make a GNUstep port. But I think it's not
very promising and we have to write our own.

greets
Stefan