Re: concept? fiend, dock, clip, miniwindows, appicons

[Armando Di Cianno]

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On 2005-01-18 22:50:31 -0500 Rogelio M.Serrano Jr.
<rogelio@smsglobal.net> wrote:
> Im a little confused with the rationales for the fiend, dock, clip,
> miniwindows and appicons.

This is a topic I've thought a lot about, but probably needlessly,
since it's not something that I'll likely ever work on, personally.
However, I am also confused as to how this is going to all resolve
itself.

Here are some thoughts I've had.

- - Dock.app should only show true GNUstep programs in it.
"Applications" only should be displayed; however, there should likely
be a way to really, truly, wrap (most?) other programs into real
"Applications".  I would like to stress this, since, using AppKit, one
can write programs that do not have a menu or do not want (to control)
a dock icon, and while that makes a silly UI inconsistenty, it is
programmitically allowed, but the Dock.app should be for Applications.
  WindowMaker emulating the style of the NeXT environment did "the
right thing" by faking it, but a real Dock.app should not do this, in
my opinion.

- - Every app that shows up in the Dock.app is a real Application, and
should thus also have a menu (also emphasizing the need for a good
wrapper program, if this is desired).  If the program is a wrapped
tcl/tk program, for e.g. maybe the menu's title is "X11 Based
Program", and the only item is "Quit".

- - Dock.app should be configurable to allow miniwindows to act NeXT /
WindowMaker like, or OS X like ("in" the Dock.app).  I personally,
lean towards the NeXT like way.

- - The Dock.app should be resizable; Applications that actually use 
the
Dock icon (yay!) shouldn't have to do anything special to control the
Dock.app icon for that app, wrt it being resizable (some work has gone
into this, iirc).  Maybe this is quite OSX like, but imho, having
graduated sizes (current WindowMaker) is no better or worse than
dynamically resizing.

- - The menu that appears when a .app icon is cliked on in the dock
should show a "Dock menu".  I do not know if this was the NeXT style
ever, as it definitely is on OS X, but the Application should be
allowed control over it's Dock.app icon, including menu's that appear.

> Im sorry im very confused.

I definitely understand that confusion.  While I agree whole-heartedly
that "GNUstep is not a Window Manager", and that the GNUstep project
should maintain a "we don't make a desktop environment, but we'd be
happy if you use GNUstep to make a desktop environment" attitude, I
think GNUstep should have the structure in place for people to make
those Desktop Environments, and Applications for them; it is therefore
important that Applications can run correctly in any GNUstep base DE,
regardless of how it displays or does things, the GNUstep framework
should enforce the structure and design.

However, having said all this, I'm not sure if this should be a
priority -- if one wants to work on it, please, please do!  But as
always, firstly, we need more apps. :-\

Just some thoughts, and shared, general confusion.

__Armando Di Cianno


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