pro taskbar
contra taskbar
Oh, excellent. I'm glad that's back. It was broken in 11.04 (or at least, neither Bazon nor I could figure out how to fix it, because I remember talking about that with him and the difficulty with similar-looking document windows, before I actually upgraded to 11.04.)
I think this statement is flawed. Real speed comes from the keyboard. Most things involving the mouse are not fast compared to the same action on the keyboard (not all).
P.S. This is not to be ant-mouse. I love the mouse, I think it's a great invention (thanks Xerox!). Somethings require a mouse. But in general, the keyboard is faster.
So do (some) non-taskbar switchers (not docks usually). Unity is an exception to this, but that will be fixed in time.
So do non-dock switchers (even some docs do this with a mouse over).
Now, You may think I'm arguing with you and saying that taskbars are bad. I'm not. Taskbars a great for those who like them, I'm just not one of those people.
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You don't really need a task bar for one click desktop switching. They could have made a real workplace switcher like the ones in awn or the Cairo dock and put it in on the Unity launcher bar, it would do one click switching and integrate well with the rest of Unity. I wonder why they didn't. What they have instead should actually be called expose desktops rather than a switcher, for that is the name of the Compiz plugin and more properly describes what it really does.
Last edited by beew; November 9th, 2011 at 08:10 PM.
Well, Expo, rather, since Exposé refers to Apple's window spread (what Compiz calls Scale) and sometimes gets used to refer to Scale.
But yes, it's the Expo button. I understand the logic - Unity's UI elements are grouped to be functionally consistent. The left edge is buttons, while the top edge is menus. A more complex widget dropped into the middle of that would be inconsistent.
This is a myth. See this article.
The relevant part is this:
And for some of us even the illusion that the keyboard is faster isn't there.
- Test subjects consistently report that keyboarding is faster than mousing.
- The stopwatch consistently proves mousing is faster than keyboarding.
Not a myth due to personal experience. Trust me, when working on the command line if I have to move over to the mouse to change tabs, it really kills momentum (I can provide other examples if you wish). The possible reasons for the results are that people are usually more familiar with the movements required to operate the mouse than the keyboard shortcuts (takes a lot less time to memorize). And often, keyboard shortcuts emulate multiple clicks. BTW, it might be worth pointing out that the greatest hackers use the keyboard almost exclusively. HR tests don't displace years of professional experience.
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Obviously that would depend on how skilled you are at the keyboard. Some people can type with the speed of light while having a conversation with a roomful of people while others type with one finger. It would also depend on how familiar you are with the keyboard. If you are used to American layout and I suddenly ask you to use a made in UK laptop I am sure it will take a toll in speed because the keys are not always where you expect them to be.
Now my question is whether keyboard jockeying is that important a skill for occupations other than secretary and the like. If you are a programmer, an artist, or a scientist etc who use computers to do a job I would think that conceptual skills would be more important than being able to type fast and navigate the keyboard. I design most of the programs for work away from the computer by the way. Checking and debugging are relatively trivial and mechanical once you get the idea correct.
In conclusion I think the speed thing is vastly over-rarted. One more mouse click or one more key stroke shouldn't be that big a deal, if that makes or breaks you maybe you are functioning at too low a level to begin with. If you get a job offer in a foreign country would you refuse it because the keyboard is layout differently?
Last edited by beew; November 10th, 2011 at 12:12 AM.
I'd think that typing speed and keyboard navigation are two different skill sets that shouldn't be confused, and the latter is far more dubious in value.
I actually don't know what bearing this has on the OP, though. What does a keyboard alternative to the taskbar look like, exactly? dniMretsaM, you don't mean Alt+Tab, do you? Because that doesn't really have any of the advantages Bazon was talking about.
Edit: I'm not saying that I don't use Alt+Tab, by the way. I'm just not going to claim it's somehow more efficient. When I don't have a hand on the mouse, it's convenient to have the alternative.
Last edited by Copper Bezel; November 10th, 2011 at 06:41 AM.
So which task-switchers are you talking about and which do you use?
So how can one be faster with a keyboard in the following setup e.g.:
2 terminal windows (TA, TB)
2 nautilus windows (NA, NB)
When the first terminal window TA is focused, how do I fast switch to 2nd nautilus window NB with the keyboard?
With the mouse, it's just one click - in the taskbar.
(and at least my mouse moves fast...)
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