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

[Copper Bezel]

Minimizing or hiding - what does it do for you?

We had a recent discussion here about minimizing from the dock in Unity, and most of us have seen conversations on Gnome Shell's choice to remove minimizing entirely on the basis of its improved workspace management. The decision by the Gnome devs was based in part on the idea that no one really knows what minimizing is for - some people use it extensively, some people don't use it at all, and there's no clear method to it. An e-mail from Owen Taylor (https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-shell-list/2011-February/msg00192.html) on the Gnome team some of you might have read included a description of some possible reasons people use the minimize feature:


* Because they like a tidy desktop. I think a lot of people are uncomfortable with a desktop where the window the are working with is overlapping other windows - where they are looking at a "gigantic pile of papers". These people like working with a few windows on a clean desktop. But they still have a larger set of windows open for less immediate tasks.

* Because maximized windows interact badly with unmaximized windows. If I have a task that involves looking at multiple unmaximized windows, then I switch to a maximized web browser, getting back to the other state is hard - I have to select each window in turn without accidentally selecting the maximized window again.

* To find a window behind other windows - if you generally select windows by clicking on them, and can't see the window or windows want, minimization can be a way of getting a big or maximized window out of the way and working with the windows underneath.

* To "save windows for later" - if you open windows to represent tasks, like responding to an email or reading a PDF of a paper, you might not want them directly in your face interfering with the work you are doing first.

One could add, for desktops that support icons, that some users make use of minimizing to get at them.

I was curious to see what habits you all have with minimizing or hiding. Do you use it at all, and if so, in what situations?

I think of minimizing as "saving windows for later," first and foremost. With the settings I use in Compiz and DockBarX, minimized windows are ignored for the most part, such as in Alt+Tab, exposé, or clicking a group icon where not all the windows are minimized. It keeps windows out of the way until I need them, and then I can retrieve them from the dock. I think of this as a different from separating concurrent but unrelated tasks on separate workspaces.

I also have Compiz set to keep hidden windows on the present workspace at all times (while DockBarX is set to ignore non-minimized windows from other workspaces.) I keep my Gmail window and music player running minimized at all times, so that I can play and skip from the media controls, receive desktop notifications for Gmail, etc., and then pull up the related windows if need be. Often, I'll have a gedit running as a notepad as well. It's nice to be able to access things like these on whatever workspace I'm on for brief interactions, then stow them away again. (Some apps use systray items for this kind of interaction, but I don't care for that - I like to manage my windowed applications from the dock if at all possible. I don't like to have to think about which little row of icons to use to get to my stuff.)

I do find myself sometimes minimizing windows to get to things underneath, but I consider it a bad habit and try to use exposé instead if I have the urge to do so, even if that means invoking it two or three times to pull up all the windows I need to get to. If I need a tidy workspace, I switch to another workspace, and I don't use desktop icons, so I don't find myself falling into those habits.

So when do you use minimizing and why? Or, if you don't use it, what are your feelings on it?

[sanderd17]

I'm a gnome-shell user, so the default is no-minimise button. I altered lots of settings in GS, but I still don't have altered the windows button settings.

If it's made easy to bring a background window back on top, than you don't need minimise IMHO.

[pelle.k]

On a small screen, i usually prefer centered windows, and one window at a time, since you can't fit very many at the some time on the screen anyway. This also helps with keeping focus on the task at hand. In OSX (where i currently spend most of my time), you can activate single-application mode, where all other open applications are hidden (not minimized mind you) when you focus an application. Not all windows though. OSX is application centric.
You can of course override this behavior temporarily, for example when you want to quick tile two applications to the left and right, respectively.
For small screens, maximizing windows is of course rather important.

On larger screens i prefer the "smart" window placement of kde and compiz, where windows are layed out to maximize the most of the unused parts of the screen. In this case, hiding (or minimizing) windows is less important IMHO. I very rarely use maximize in this scenario, since for example web browsing at 1980x1080 (or even higher) is a rather painful experience, since many websites stretch the content to wide (super long rows of text is rather hard to follow).

I think i prefer the latter method, even if it's not very useful (or perhaps not even that comfortable) on a small size screen though. Better for getting work done, and probably more useful for multitasking. For casual browsing (listening to music etc), i would probably choose the former method though (perfect for a small sized laptop or a tablet).

[Copper Bezel]

If it's made easy to bring a background window back on top, than you don't need minimise IMHO.
Yeah, see, this exactly the sort of view I was hoping to hear from, because that's not what I use minimizing for at all.


On larger screens i prefer the "smart" window placement of kde and compiz, where windows are layed out to maximize the most of the unused parts of the screen. In this case, hiding (or minimizing) windows is less important IMHO. I very rarely use maximize in this scenario, since for example web browsing at 1980x1080 (or even higher) is a rather painful experience, since many websites stretch the content to wide (super long rows of text is rather hard to follow).
Yeah, even on my netbook screen, I use Compiz's two-up layout as often as not.

[pelle.k]

Now that i think of it, i quite like his arguments for window hiding/minimizing, even if they don't always apply to my own particular workflow. Everyone is different though, so i hope the gnome devs can appreciate that one particular workflow might not be in everyones best interest, even if gnome have to settle for a default, of course. But i hope it'll be configurable. Well, we all know what people say about gnome and configurability, but there's still hope, right? ;)

* Because they like a tidy desktop. I think a lot of people are uncomfortable with a desktop where the window the are working with is overlapping other windows - where they are looking at a "gigantic pile of papers". These people like working with a few windows on a clean desktop. But they still have a larger set of windows open for less immediate tasks.
I can appreciate that. When i'm concentrating very hard, getting rid of all the clutter on the desktop makes it easier to focus. I do that sometimes.

* Because maximized windows interact badly with unmaximized windows. If I have a task that involves looking at multiple unmaximized windows, then I switch to a maximized web browser, getting back to the other state is hard - I have to select each window in turn without accidentally selecting the maximized window again.
Not only that, having too many windows beneath (perhaps with a similar content color) makes the windows you're working with stand out less, and that might prove distracting and/or eye strain in the long run. I often choose a simplistic desktop background, just for that very reason. So the windows stand out well.

* To find a window behind other windows - if you generally select windows by clicking on them, and can't see the window or windows want, minimization can be a way of getting a big or maximized window out of the way and working with the windows underneath.
This can be helped with an exposé type of window picker, or just a very good task bar. However, that shouldn't be a necessary requirement IMHO (especially exposé, which requires desktop effects to be turned on etc). But i agree that minimizing to find a window beneath seem a little crude, but it's nice to have the option to do so.

* To "save windows for later" - if you open windows to represent tasks, like responding to an email or reading a PDF of a paper, you might not want them directly in your face interfering with the work you are doing first.
A little like the "Because they like a tidy desktop" argument, but the principle is still sound IMHO. you make use of minimized windows as a sort of GTD queue system. A rather nice concept, if you ask me. I probably do just this quite often, without knowing (or thinking about) it.

[el_koraco]

I use it on stacking WMs, so as not to have a jumble of windows overlapping. I didn't use it in Gnome Shell, though it has the option of minimizing, but opted for moving window groups to their workspaces, and I can't minimize anything in scrotwm, so I keep firefox always open on WS one, some common CLI apps on WS two, and model the rest according to needs (which is by far the sweetest setup I've had yet).

[cgroza]

I use a tiling WM (xmonad). I move all windows that are not necessary on one of the 9 virtual desktops. In the rest, all I need and useful stays visible on my screen and taking the maximum of the available space.

[JDShu]

I don't use minimize at all. As long as I can get the window I want easily at any time, I'm happy. In the past I only used minimize to reach the desktop, which was really inefficient.

[flyingsliverfin]

Im still on gnome2 and like the ability to minimize to the bottom of the screen. It's one less click/key press to get to stuff because you dont need to tile or hover to see what the actual window is. It's the icon + window title. All I need is one quick scan and a click to bring it up.
Otherwise I just stick all my application launchers on the top bar and almost never need to minimize all my open windows. There's always the 'show desktop' button :)

I havent had a chance to play with unity/gnomeShell yet, but if they're like OSX, then i actually wouldn't use minimize for anything. Cluttered windows -> shove to next space. Tiling to get to a different program.

I still like gnome2's normal dock-less design best though. Feels the easiest/most productive

[NightwishFan]

I don't use minimize at all. As long as I can get the window I want easily at any time, I'm happy. In the past I only used minimize to reach the desktop, which was really inefficient.

I concur.

[del_diablo]

I only use minimize when I am running non-fullscreen applications, and I dislike having certain applications clutter the background. What I do most of the time is to just tab back to the fullscreen browser, and then tab back to the non-fullscreen application, clearing any clutter.
Its not that useful, really.

[ctrlmd]

i always use minimize cause i don't like too many opened windows at the same time i prefer one window maximized and the rest minimized

[Copper Bezel]

Huh. So for those who do use it, it looks like it really is a matter of reducing clutter or getting to background windows. Am I the only one who uses it to "save for later"?

(I'm aware that my other use, a place to keep things handy on whatever workspace I'm on, doesn't really apply to most panel situations, certainly not without the old Gnome panel "restore to present workspace" functionality.)

[keithpeter]

Hello All

Small screen (1024 by 600 netbook) I use applications maximised and resort to alt-tab and virtual desktops. I don't minimise windows much. Hiding - or mode shifting - is by using workspaces.

I'm on Xubuntu and use the Alt-F11 complete maximise on each desktop and crtl-shift-arrow to move between (firefox, officelibre, Audacity when editing sound files, shotwell for pictures).

I use dmenu for application start

Large screen (1920 by 1080): DWM/dmenu.

The default vertical tile with 'helper' applications in the right 'stack' helps me see information I need. E.G. Firefox in master pane, Liferea, Gedit on the stack for finding sites and note taking (drag text from Firefox or Liferea as I scroll).

Tagging helps bring in e.g. bring OpenOffice write from another virtual desktop and then send it back again just with keystrokes.

Again, no minimise or hide, just stacking on different tags/desktops.

Interesting thread.

[hhh]

... Gnome Shell's choice to remove minimizing entirely...
Just a technical point, this statement is false. You can still enable it, it's just a hidden preference now.

@Bezel, I use minimize like you, both to reduce clutter, hiding a music player, for example, or to keep an app open that I'm sure I'll use again during the session (I almost always have a terminal and file manager open lately).

[KingYaba]

OS X's hide command (cmd h) was something I used all the time. I minimize stuff, now, and spread things to my different Workspaces. Top left corner is web, 2nd one is music, 3rd is email, etc...

[ilovelinux33467]

I'm on KDE and I always minimize windows just for the same reasons as hhh said.

[Copper Bezel]

I'm glad I'm not crazy, then. (At least for that! = D)


Just a technical point, this statement is false. You can still enable it, it's just a hidden preference now.
True, and I should have made note. It's been removed from the default UX, but that doesn't mean that a lot of coding didn't go into making it continue to work under Mutter and Shell if the user opts to do so.

[odiseo77]

I use the minimize function quite often when I'm working with many programs/windows (like surfing the web while writing a document in LibreOffice Writer, for example); I don't like having all windows maximized all the time for several reasons: it may cause "visual noise" that distracts me and confuses me, and it's not aesthetically pleasant, so I prefer to minimize some windows and maximize them when I need them (of course, if I know I won't use a given program for a long time, I prefer to just close it, instead of minimizing it).

[ScionicSpectre]

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.

However, I think it's only good to do away with them when you have a more appropriate alternative. I think Gnome Shell does this very well, but I can't say that managing more than a few windows in Unity is pleasant compared to OS X, Windows, or GNOME 3 (or two). Managing windows is a constant task that presents itself and needs a good solution- the workspace switcher in Unity isn't super discoverable or fun to use (especially compared to the overview in GNOME Shell- I'm speaking for dozens of users I've seen use the two, I'm not just trolling).

When you force people to put more effort into something in a way that doesn't offer a lot of clarification or any side benefits, it's probably not the best design choice. I'm sure they'll find a better way around this, but I don't think the best way is to ignore the problem and remove what you don't like before you have a better way to handle the problem.

So I personally believe that is one way in which they shouldn't copy the OS X behavior for now. If minimizing makes the button on the dock glow, why shouldn't clicking that button to minimize work? Unless, of course, the preferred method of using Unity is to fullscreen all of your applications like a tablet.

[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 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsZvwyxJ9vk) - 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. = )

[el_koraco]

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. = )

There are no goals, they're just changing stuff up in order to keep it "fresh". There's this whole trend towards introducing features that are supposed to dinstinguish the dekstop from the competition. Not only in Linux, Apple is introducing "natural scrolling" and similar nonsense. I guess these designers and developer just get bored at some point, and go wild. Then people either come up with hacks to work around the newly imposed limitations, or the original concept changes in order to accommodate reality.

[ubun2geek]

I'd really miss the ability to minimize and maximize. It helps me keep my desktop uncluttered. :)

[hhh]

@el_koraco, I think the same way, how much of this is planned obsolescence and job security?

[SecretCode]

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."

I use this frequently (and when I have to use Winderz, its equivalent there: Alt-Esc). But I use minimise more often. And this is with dual screens and four workspaces. I suppose I minimise things I don't expect to use for the rest of the day (but which have some state that would be tedious to restore, like multiple tabs in a Nautilus window), lower for things I'll come back to in an hour or two.

[el_koraco]

@el_koraco, I think the same way, how much of this is planned obsolescence and job security?

Probably a significant deal. I browsed through the Q&A session that Ubuntu developers had on reddit. The dude pretty much said it would take him two weeks to code all the stupidity out of Unity, but they are only allowed to do the stuff the designers tell them.

[pelle.k]

In my mind, the best thing would be to offer two very popular modes of operation: multi-window-mode and single-window-mode, and automate it.
The idea here is that the desktop would switch between multi, and single mode on the press of a button. Some people use only one mode, and some, like me, use both, depending on the circumstances (like screen size, and type of work). Preferably, one should also be able to override say single-window-mode by allowing a second window temporarily (by perhaps using an option in a context menu or whatever), but one should more or less just choose a mode and go with the flow.

[Copper Bezel]

Probably a significant deal. I browsed through the Q&A session that Ubuntu developers had on reddit. The dude pretty much said it would take him two weeks to code all the stupidity out of Unity, but they are only allowed to do the stuff the designers tell them.
Yeah, I liked seeing that the most controversial features of Unity are ones that even the developers dislike.

I think there really is a perception, both on the Gnome side and the Canonical side, that a prettier and simpler interface is going to actually increase Linux's user base, and I think Android is a big influence, not in terms of being a touch interface for mobiles, but in terms of being a popular Linux with a simple approach. I think Gnome and Unity are also trying very hard not to look like Windows, particularly an older version of Windows, to differentiate themselves. But yeah, there's a lot of "new and different" for its own sake, and no one's addressing the simple fact that a good interface for the OS only goes so far if everyone's shipping the same enduser apps, which are themselves rather varied in their focus on usability.

[el_koraco]

And then people go on debating about design philosophies and stuff like that, as if there was any method to the dumbest of changes.

[Copper Bezel]

Well, I know, I'm one of those people, in this thread. = ) It's also low-hanging fruit, both for the devs and for us talking about it, since it seems like talking about all the neat, sensible, exciting ways you could organize a garage full of randomly collected stuff that hasn't been cleaned out since, well, 1995.