WHY the cube? How do you make pragmatic use of workspaces?

[triplesick]

So I got the cube set up and spun it around and it was awesome!! Then I realized that I personally had no use for it and it would probably confuse me in the long run. So I got rid of the cube.

My question is this: how would I take advantage of multiple workspaces? Why would I want to have windows open in more than one workspace?

[raymondh]

I use the cube because of that. At all times, I have thunderbird, firefox, pidgin and Banshee (music) running. I find spinning the cube faster than scrolling.

[tuxxy]

You can group your apps by type to each cube face so a multimedia face, document/coding face, e-mail face etc you get the idea.

heh you should see my setup then I run twinview so each face is like x2 so 8 sides :popcorn:

[zubin71]

well, i think its simply a matter of taste and how much stuff(downloading,reading, coding, movies, music etc.) you do at a time.

i use 9 desktops in a 3x3 matrix fashion. i keep a terminal opened in the 5th, music on the 2nd, browsing in the first, downloading in the 9th, and movies in the 3rd. the other desktops are used when these ones get over-populated.

so, its simply a matter of taste. :-)

[ceti331]

So I got the cube set up and spun it around and it was awesome!! Then I realized that I personally had no use for it and it would probably confuse me in the long run. So I got rid of the cube.

My question is this: how would I take advantage of multiple workspaces? Why would I want to have windows open in more than one workspace?

the way i've always seen it is that the whole unix (& more so open-source/linux) philosophy is that you have many simple tools that the user can put together in different ways.

So, instead of the more mainstream approach of complex single fullscreen (commercial) apps, you'd use the more versatile/customizable linux window-managers & lots of simpler,smaller apps.

The example being coding with a terminal + several text editors open - versus using MS devstudio IDE in fullscreen with it's fairly elaborate internal tiling interface (which is really like having a window-manager within the APP running within a window-manager for the desktop/OS)

The other big example is GIMP which doesn't have a master window like photoshop ..the UI gets a lot of complaints from microsoft-dependants.. but it makes perfect sense when you can just devote one whole desktop to it.

[triplesick]

aha! quite pragmatically useful indeed! certainly faster than opening and closing applications all the time--just leave them open and out of sight!!

[transmition]

I have three workspaces setup, the first for work-type things:

OpenOffice
Photoshop
Text editor
etc.

The second is multimedia
-Transmission
-Mplayer
-Picture Viewer
-Handbrake

And then the third is dedicated to firefox.

The advantage to this setup is that regardless of which workspace you are on, you are only one space away from whatever it is you are doing.

[lykwydchykyn]

Well, first, the cube is just an effect for switching workspaces. It's separate from the idea of separate workspaces, which has been around for years and years on *nix systems.

I love multiple workspaces, especially at work. I do a lot of different things at my job, and at any moment whatever I'm doing can be interrupted when someone comes in asking for information or when I get a support call. So being able to quickly switch from, say, a web development project (for which may have 3-4 different applications open) to my email, or virtualbox, or a terminal without having to minimize a bunch of stuff and lose my place in what I was doing is priceless.

Bottom line is, if you only do one thing at a time with your computer, and that one thing only involves one application window, then multiple workspaces probably aren't that useful to you. But if you multi-task, work with several applications at once, or have to switch gears a lot, they're awesome.

[Tibuda]

I don't like the cube too, but workspaces are great. I prefer to use workspace switcher applet, and the workspace wall.

[Grenage]

I used to use the cube; while it looks cool the novelty usually wears off, and it's too slow for me. I couldn't go back to a single workspace.

The other big example is GIMP which doesn't have a master window like photoshop ..the UI gets a lot of complaints from microsoft-dependants.. but it makes perfect sense when you can just devote one whole desktop to it.

Prime example!

[SunnyRabbiera]

The other big example is GIMP which doesn't have a master window like photoshop ..the UI gets a lot of complaints from microsoft-dependants.. but it makes perfect sense when you can just devote one whole desktop to it.

Not with more recent versions of the GIMP

[Tibuda]

Not with more recent versions of the GIMP

What happened in these versions?

[hessiess]

The cube and compositing in general is complelty useless, however if you topically have loads of windows open, organising it on one desktop is virtually imposable, at which point you start dumping apps onto another workspace, or switch to a tiling WM.

Thease days I cannot stand working on a platform without workspaces.


Not with more recent versions of the GIMP.

That is a pain as it breaks alt+tabing, thankfully gimp still works normally in DWM.

[Grenage]

Not with more recent versions of the GIMP

Are you sure you're not thinking of the window hack? It's still separate windows on my 2.6.