openlook-request@openlook (05/16/91)
How about a resource that always keeps the Desktop on top of all other windows so that non-computer-type (NCT...for short) users would always know that, for example, they could go to the upper right corner of their screen and pan around. I've found many NCT's that want to quickly warp to another screen and cannot find their desktop (accidently overlapped) get quickly frustrated with virtualroot-ness (using the arrow keys on the root window is too amorphous an interface to screen-warping for many NCT's). Also, (maybe this should also be cc-ed to the OPENLOOK committee wherever they are) despite how useful/easy most of us find using the desktop, most NCT users get confused as to where they are, or how to move around. Perhaps, some OL-style scrollbars or clickable arrows would be nice. And I know this is unimaginative, but the icon could be more switcher-like, but with all 4 arrows to indicate screen switching. How about allowing programmatic access to modify the current screen? It would be very useful if an application pgm could switch the screen from, say a documentation screen to your software development screen (or for you financial types out there, from a swaps-trading screen to a portfolio management screen). Perhaps some sort of protocol between this app and olvwm would also allow screen-naming (and screen-name aliasing) to simply this too. This may mean splitting off the desktop as a separate process... Frank G. (caffeine-fueled synapse firings)
mh@roger.imsd.contel.com (Mike Hoegeman) (05/18/91)
In article <b1ktch1@openlook.Unify.Com> openlook-request@openlook writes: > >How about allowing programmatic access to modify the current screen? >It would be very useful if an application pgm could switch the >screen from, say a documentation screen to your software development >screen (or for you financial types out there, from a swaps-trading >screen to a portfolio management screen). Perhaps some sort of >protocol between this app and olvwm would also allow screen-naming >(and screen-name aliasing) to simply this too. This may mean >splitting off the desktop as a separate process... >Frank G. >(caffeine-fueled synapse firings) This is something that I would (as a programmer) dearly love. It would allow me to easily flip screens in things like vi. TO further demonstrate the coolness of this idea you could also do something like this in make. Say you have a makefile that takes a long time, Once your make is finished you could have a popup that allows you to switch screens once the make has completed. something like this bigprogram: $(MANY_OBJS) SCREENCOORDS=`olvwm_coords -current`;\ $(CC) -o bigprogram $(MANY_OBJS);\ olvwm_coords -interactive -moveto $SCREENCOORDS; olvwm_coords would be a little front end program that lets you get the current screens x y via the -current flag and lets you move the screen x y via the -moveto option. A "do you really want to move" popup could be placed on the screen if you added the -interactive flag. -mike