::scr Dressing up the computer

[Arvid Gidhagen]

> screen. After all you only deal with the contents of one window at any
> moment so surely a better to solution that providing more real estate
> in which to display information is to make it easier to move between
> different sets of information.

I'm not so sure about that. When I'm working with paper-based material
(yes, real sheets of paper, it does happen occasionally) I like to
spread out a huge amount of different papers and books and notepads
and stuff all over a table.

The advantage is that you're able to instantly compare things just by
looking at them without having to shuffle objects around, and this is
what I'd want from my huge screen. Switching between different sets
of information creates a modal-style interface, and the more things
you want to have running/open at the same time, the more confusing
the switching gets (what a lovely sentence).

In my experience, it takes time for people to get used to the idea
of multiple workspaces. Some never get it at all. It took me quite
a while before I began to really appreciate it, and I know a lot of
people who use only one workspace even though they have three more
available as default. I think part of this might come from the way
CDE handles workspaces (as I may or may not have mentioned, CDE is
the default window manager at the university) - in order to move a
window from on workspace to another, you have to click in the upper-
left boxy thing on the window, select "move to workspace", deselect
the current workspace and select the new workspace.

The way I've configured my AfterStep desktop, I can simply drag a
window "over the edge" into the adjacent workspace. I find this
extremely convenient. Some people think it's horribly confusing,
and I haven't bothered to find out why. But as far as I'm concerned,
Tog's opinions on Fitts' law and treating edge-of-screen areas as
sacred are a hindrance. I'm deft enough to be able not to throw
the mouse pointer nine inches into the next screen when I want to
click on the wharf.

My mental model of the workspace arrangement I use is that it's like
the afore-mentioned table with lots of papers placed side-by-side,
even if I can't see all of them at once. On the other hand, the CDE
treatment of workspaces is like a stack of papers where you have to
shuffle them around to get the desired one.

I also really like the Windows taskbar because it makes switching
between windows easy. If you only ever write text, using alt-tab
to switch between windows is fine, but since a lot of the windows
I have open at a given moment usually are web pages, the keyboard
is generally less useful. And alt-tab still works, of course.
The taskbar is to me a working interim solution until I get my
giant screen.

- Arvid