Minimizing / hiding - do you use it? If so, how?

[Copper Bezel]

I don't know, I've altered the way my desktop works several times in the last year, all under Gnome 2. It doesn't seem that difficult to get used to a different way of managing things if that method makes sense. That said, after that topic, I did start using clicking a window list item to minimize it again. = )

I don't think minimizing is an unnatural metaphor for anything. Windows are sheets of paper on a desk, workspaces are separate desk spaces, and minimizing is dropping one of those pieces of paper into a drawer or folder at your feet.

[NightwishFan]

I don't think minimizing is an unnatural metaphor for anything. Windows are sheets of paper on a desk, workspaces are separate desk spaces, and minimizing is dropping one of those pieces of paper into a drawer or folder at your feet.

That is called the "desktop metaphor". Frankly I think some aspects of it do need to disappear. People like tablet/phone devices because they quickly become natural to use. That is why I support the Gnome Shell so strongly is that it makes using Windows more natural and less abstract.

Try explaining window management to someone who has never used a computer helps a lot to put this into perspective.

[el_koraco]

I think minimizing, like menu bars and other unnatural computing metaphors, are a bit dated and usually harmful to the user experience in comparison to any other device. They're the kinds of things that separate normal users from technical ones unnecessarily.
.

lolwut?

[hhh]

A menu bar is a metaphor? Zuh?

@NightwishFan re: phone analogy, managing my Android phone the first couple of days was a PITA.

I'm paraphrasing someone else here, but technology is a Faustian bargain (it giveth and it taketh away). What is the problem that this technological advancement will offer a solution to, a serious problem or a trivial problem? And does the solution create greater problems than the one it is solving?

What problem does removing the minimizing button solve? The problem of minimizing a window? The problem of having to discern between three buttons?

What problem does removing the menu bar solve? The problem of occupying 28 pixels across the top of the screen?

[NightwishFan]

A menu bar is a metaphor? Zuh?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_metaphor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_interface_design

@NightwishFan re: phone analogy, managing my Android phone the first couple of days was a PITA.

Depends on the interface. I know people that I wouldn't trust to solve a math problem for me that zoom around those phones or ipods. They can keep them if you ask me.

I'm paraphrasing someone else here, but technology is a Faustian bargain (it giveth and it taketh away). What is the problem that this technological advancement will offer a solution to, a serious problem or a trivial problem? And does the solution create greater problems than the one it is solving?

Everything has pros/cons and nothing is perfect. Optimising for the most common case does not always help either, and stunts innovation.

What problem does removing the minimizing button solve? The problem of minimizing a window? The problem of having to discern between three buttons?

It takes minimizing out of the equation and it no longer has to be processed by a human using the interface. The rationale I suppose is "there are far better ways to switch a window". Personally; Hiding a window I do find comfortable but I am not missing something with it gone.

What problem does removing the menu bar solve? The problem of occupying 28 pixels across the top of the screen?

Menu bar? You mean like a top panel?

[hhh]

Menu bar? You mean like a top panel?

Panel or menu bar. Did I misunderstand?

I understood the desktop metaphor. Minimize would be putting something under a paper weight.

I'm guessing that you and I think alike regarding interface changes... I'll take them where necessary but gawd what a pain to have to learn new muscle memory patterns!

Let me ask the developers this... we've had cars for a hundred years and even though the technology has come so, so far, they still have pretty much the same design... you enter through a door, you sit behind a steering wheel, you look at some gauges, you have some pedals, you have one way to start the car. Are all of those similarities through the decades there just for safety reasons even though the initial design decisions were not that good, or is it because those design decisions were made right the first time? If the latter, what is wrong with the PC design decisions that we have been holding on to since 1984?

[Copper Bezel]

Panel or menu bar. Did I misunderstand?

Yeah, that was ScionicSpectre, not NightwishFan.

Let me ask the developers this... we've had cars for a hundred years and even though the technology has come so, so far, they still have pretty much the same design... you enter through a door, you sit behind a steering wheel, you look at some gauges, you have some pedals, you have one way to start the car. Are all of those similarities through the decades there just for safety reasons even though the initial design decisions were not that good, or is it because those design decisions were made right the first time? If the latter, what is wrong with the PC design decisions that we have been holding on to since 1984?

I'd actually argue that with cars, it pretty clearly is the former. That's a "UX" that's mandated by related governing bodies. But you can't really ask the developers, 'cuz they're not here, see. = /

That is called the "desktop metaphor". Frankly I think some aspects of it do need to disappear. People like tablet/phone devices because they quickly become natural to use. That is why I support the Gnome Shell so strongly is that it makes using Windows more natural and less abstract.

But minimizing wasn't actually a part of the first desktop systems, if we want to be picky. Workspaces, either. Yet the desktop metaphor has been around since 1984, as hhh notes. Gnome Shell certainly still uses a desktop metaphor. It's really not that far afield from Gnome 2.

What problem does removing the minimizing button solve? The problem of minimizing a window? The problem of having to discern between three buttons?

Actually, that e-mail I cited makes some reference to that. Aesthetically, one button does look better, and it's easier to hit on a tablet if it's alone; since Gnome Shell doesn't use a taskbar, there's no indication that the window still exists outside of the activities view, which isn't designed to cope with minimized windows, and so on. A mix of serious and reasonable UX considerations and "we didn't code it, so it's not there."

I, too, actually agree that removing needless design features is a good thing, reducing visual and mental clutter, but that ...

The rationale I suppose is "there are far better ways to switch a window".

...removing hiding windows seems hard to justify on those grounds, because hiding isn't a "switching" tool in the way that hhh and I use it, which is why I started the topic, to see how commonly it is used in a way that doesn't duplicate other existing functionality. (Obviously, not often, probably not often enough to justify it as a feature.) I do still think there are probably better ways to hide windows, and some of them could be more immediately intuitive. I love this one - the Clever Windows demo, where hiding is a more tactile gesture of "stuffing" the window in a cute little window-holder. Notice that it avoids some of the duplication of other window management features.

I'd certainly like to be rid of the term "minimize," since it's a reference to Windows 3.x = P

@NightwishFan re: phone analogy, managing my Android phone the first couple of days was a PITA.

And Android's metaphor is that the device "is" the app presently running, which doesn't work in a windowed environment. Windows 8's Metro UI still has windows, but defined by their content, of course, and I think it's the most abstract approach you could ask for (but one that looks easy to get the hang of.) Minimizing isn't a concern there, either, of course, but I'd hate to death to have nine or ten running apps in Windows 8, by the look of it. Removing features there - crazy, but true - actually could remove functionality.

I like that Ubuntu uses a bit of OSX's "the window is the document" philosophy with the global menu and dock (as opposed to treating a window as the application, in Windows style.) Taken to its logical conclusion, that removes a layer of abstraction - if the window represents a file, then the application is just the thing handling it for you. OSX is obviously further along that path than Ubuntu is (particularly in Lion.)

[Copper Bezel]

Not to bump, but an unrelated thought - does anyone use the "lower" feature in Emerald (and I think some other systems?) Middle-clicking a titlebar drops that window to the bottom of the pile. That seems to suit the use-case for most of the minimizing actions that don't require actual minimizing, but it seems rarely used or commented on, and it's practically a hidden feature even in Emerald. It certainly solves the problem of "maximized windows interacting poorly with non-maximized ones."

[hhh]

Ha, I just logged on and you just posted. Funny.

I use Emerald and I don't use that feature, but that's because I prefer to minimize a window and get it totally out of the way than to keep it open but lower in the stack. Probably my whole behavior pattern regarding windows on a computer stems from my preference for using a single desktop. About the only time I use a virtual desktop is if I have GIMP open for a long time. But, if we're talking about about Gnome3, I would have gladly started using virtual desktops more rather than finding a way to restore the minimize button if they hadn't made switching desktops so damn awkward.

I've recently been playing with evilwm and calm window manager (cwm) and I'm finding I prefer cwm, which has a hide window keyboard shortcut, to evilwm, which only lowers, raises or closes windows. So it looks like here, too, I'd rather take the time to adapt the user interface to my user patterns than the other way around.

[Copper Bezel]

Oh, absolutely. = D It's just that between Gnome 3 on the one hand offering somewhat controversial "sane defaults" and Unity on the other being pushed as an all-in-one, one-size-fits-all workflow, I want to figure out what the actual goals are. I have no intention of using the default anything myself. = )