Gnome Shell devs: One "last" favor

[Copper Bezel]

Yeah, and I really just like them as indicators of where I am in a page. I almost always use two-finger scrolling instead of actually grabbing them. Even edge scrolling seems simpler than actually finding and dragging the scrollbar, and the (minor) pixel cost annoys me on a netbook screen.

gamblor01, yeah, I've browsed through the extensions page quite a bit and have a couple of extensions I can't live without, like the Zeitgeist search, window-driven Alt+Tab and keyboard workspace switching in the overview. (Two of which I felt were missing features before the extensions were launched. Extensions really do solve problems.) But thanks for the recommendation. It's not exactly what I'm looking for, but I'll play with it.

Oh - if you're using AWN for task switching, try installing the DockBarX applet for it. It's all the features of the Unity Launcher and the Windows 7 superbar tasks combined. Quite a step up from AWN's default task list.

[markbl]

I must admit I don't like the overlay scrollbars in Unity, because they are less featureful (no quick scrolling by clicking on the space) and actually using them takes a bit too much concentration.

I agree that it is a shame we have lost that function and they are a bit awkward to use, but on the plus side the overlay scrollbars take up less room and certainly look much better.

I installed the latest debian unstable a few days ago to see what gnome-shell looked like there and must admit that the old style scrollbars look extremely ugly now.

[Copper Bezel]

God, that just gets into the old debate about Gnome and Canonical's toxic relationship. Gnome apparently intends to duplicate the overlay scrollbar effort for no reason at all, along with Unity-like quicklists. And the appindicator spec that started the damned fight would have worked better with Gnome Shell than retaining the old indicators does, because dbus can communicate with the Shell, so all notification tray menus would be consistently drawn by the shell and accessible without leaving the overview. The overlay scrollbars are just the one feature where we lucked out that Gnome didn't have to actually write any code to support Canonical's. = P

Edit: Correction: I looked into it, and the quicklist work isn't being duplicated, as Gnome really is going to attempt to follow the Ayatana spec on that one. My bad.

[gamblor01]

Oh - if you're using AWN for task switching, try installing the DockBarX applet for it. It's all the features of the Unity Launcher and the Windows 7 superbar tasks combined. Quite a step up from AWN's default task list.

I guess this is another thing we'll have to disagree on. Don't get me wrong I think that the Unity badges/progress bars behaviors are very useful. However, I just couldn't get the launchers in the dockbarx applet to look decent. They aren't sized the same as the awn applets, they are offset, don't have the same little triangular indicators, have a glow behind them, etc. Using that just made everything look goofy and sloppy because it wasn't consistent. My workflow hasn't really been impacted by this so I'm just using awn for now and hoping that they will eventually include these items for the task manager applet as well.

[Copper Bezel]

Yeah, I recommended it for workflow reasons, not the look. The sizing and styling of the DockBarX items are all controlled by user-editable themes, but I seem to have lost the theme I was using (and it was Orta / Faenza styled in any case.) You can force them to mesh with the other AWN applets by controlling the icon size and spacing, but I never really had anything but DBX on my dock panel, anyway. And I forgot that most of the really cool features depend on Compiz, so. = / N/M.

[gamblor01]

Yeah, I recommended it for workflow reasons, not the look. The sizing and styling of the DockBarX items are all controlled by user-editable themes, but I seem to have lost the theme I was using (and it was Orta / Faenza styled in any case.) You can force them to mesh with the other AWN applets by controlling the icon size and spacing, but I never really had anything but DBX on my dock panel, anyway. And I forgot that most of the really cool features depend on Compiz, so. = / N/M.

Yeah I was excited to get the window thumbnails back only to realize that they weren't working at all. After thinking about it for a few seconds I remembered that they rely on compiz and of course, since I'm on shell it's all mutter anyway. Bummer...but oh well.

[gamblor01]

But thanks for the recommendation. It's not exactly what I'm looking for, but I'll play with it.

Hey I was just looking at gnome shell shortcuts (http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome...rd-nav.html.en) and found out a few useful ones that sort of do this same window snapping thing. Try holding the super key and pressing arrow keys...

• super+left: Maximize a window vertically along the left side of the screen. Press again to restore the window to its previous size.
• super+right: Maximize a window vertically along the right side of the screen. Press again to restore the window to its previous size.
• super+down: Restore a maximized window to its original size.
• super+up: Maximize a window, or restore a maximized window to its original size.