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tehkain
April 2nd, 2007, 08:02 AM
After about 12 years of using a panel/toolbar centered interface I think it is time for a change. The basic panel is still essentially the same panel we seen in windows 95. The only difference is we figuired out how to throw more buttons and info on it. So now to the topic: Does anyone else find the panel, task list, and notifacation area as being a vestige that we seem unable to escape.

Right now we have one button to launch something. One area to say its working and maybe another to select it if its in your notification area. Then we throw a a clock and a bunch of other controls into the mix and we have a cluster f^&!@.

I am not really an apple fan boy but I would venture to say that they are atleast trying to move the idea of the the toolbar forward(they are not alone in this). I do enjoy apples toolbars because they do group many of these functions into a usable area. Sadly they can't change radically since they are trying to pull windows user and allow them to have a degree of understanding at the same time. The apple method is not perfect either. They have 2 bars doing the job one could if they reduced dock object size.

So does anyone else feel this way? or am I alone in the dislike of the panel.

So what do you think will render the panel obsolete or advance it in the right direct?

My best bet is the search function like Deskbar.. but the average lazy user lacks the patience and skill(this it's self is sad) to type.

igknighted
April 2nd, 2007, 08:48 AM
The problem is that I need something I can always access. For me, panels allow my data to always be accessibly. I have a hidden dock with almost all the apps I ever use that I can get to easily, as I think the concept of navigating menus is horrid for most tasks (nice to have for the rarely used apps tho). In order for a no-panel desktop to work for me this is how it would have to work:


simple mouse-only activation of a floating array of widgets (with a keyboard shortcut too, but a mouse only shortcut is a MUST)
easy launchers on one widget must let me launch apps without browsing
clock must be easily accessible, preferably always visible in some out of the way corner
the entire menu must be accessible without effort as well (the right-click method works well, but needs to be possible when I cannot see the desktop
as with any overly gui'ed system, this must be responsive enough so that it doesn't slow me down.


Much of this can be done with Beryl, but I don't want to have to run beryl for this, as it slows my system down. I am encouraged by KDE4, I think much of this will be possible without beryl.

karellen
April 2nd, 2007, 09:40 AM
I have no problems with the panel whatsoever

nalmeth
April 2nd, 2007, 10:11 AM
So now to the topic: Does anyone else find the panel, task list, and notifacation area as being a vestige that we seem unable to escape.
I get that feeling a lot.

You mentioned Mac using 2 toolbars, but most Gnome distros do this by default.
In one way its a refreshing, and actually useful interface, but it drives me crazy that there is that unused middle space in the top toolbar. And filling it with crap only makes it more annoying.

I think there are creative alternatives being developed, but as you said they don't become popular because they require the user to rethink his work-flow. And the majority of users won't do this.

Look at E16 or E17, the Mezzo desktop, fvwm, beryl, there are other possibilities out there, but the panel has proven to be a commonly understood piece of UI architecture, and it can be made to intrude as little on the rest of the desktop as you want.

For daily use, I prefer an organized, minimal panel. Everything is about or less than 2 clicks away. Most important, unintrusive, and clean.

But as soon as I'm bored and feeling bound or restricted, E17 and friends are not far away :D

igknighted
April 2nd, 2007, 11:06 AM
I'm going to set up a new partition with Fluxbox w/ beryl and see how I manage with no panels at all. I will make one exception, and that is going to be some sort of dock that remains hidden until I call for it because I hate menus for common tasks. I use things like my browser, chat clients etc. often enough that menus are annoying. On the rare occasion I pull up, say, gparted then I can deal with menus... but for common stuff launchers are soo much more efficient.

Screenshots will soon follow.

EDIT: Not going as planned... if I had thought this through I would have remembered that since fluxbox is a WM as is beryl, I cannot use both... I need a DE, or to set up beryl as its own session in GDM. So I am trying with Xfce, but Xfce hates when you get rid of all the panels. It lets me do it, but when it starts up the last panel is back.

I need a newer beryl version to do some of the things I want, and I might even try going to KDE so I can use SuperKaramba. Right now adesklets, nice as they are, just aren't cutting it. Widgets are becoming exceedingly important without panels, but I like that. I feel like the widgets are more functional, the issue is using them. Luckily beryl has the hot screen corners so I can fade to the desktop when I hit the right corner... this is neat. Awkward right now, but once I get used to what corner is what then I think it will be very efficient.

A couple more things to figure out... (1) with KDE I think I can get different wallpapers on the sides of the cube... very helpful since they are not numbered ATM, and (2) with the newer beryl version there is a widget layer, so if I can set a screen corner to bring the widget layer to the front then I will seriously be in business.

igknighted
April 3rd, 2007, 07:02 AM
Here's the screenshot of what I've settled on. I have learned so much about beryl and karamba, this has been a neat project. Beryl isn't just great eye candy, it also has a ton of great productivity tools. Screen corners as shortcuts, the widget layer (I think this is only SVN right now, and I have had issues with it and karamba), tons of shortcuts (mouse and keyboard)... it really is powerful.

bonzodog
April 3rd, 2007, 04:46 PM
I use Openbox with no panel at all - My desktop switching is done with ctrl-alt-arrow keys, my windows with the old alt-tab, and a focus follows mouse effect - this means that I can use firefox with a terminal on top of it, but firefox is effectively the focused app.

Openbox comes with a dock area, which can take dock apps - this means I have just a clock and systray app there. The systray app has been resized so that it only accomodates gaim.

http://xs413.xs.to/xs413/07115/openzen6.png.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs413&d=07115&f=openzen6.png)

There is no need for a panel IMO, unless you really need a taskbar, so you can tell what apps you have open. But I tend to open different apps on different desks - I run Weechat IRC in fullscreen on desk two, for instance, with FF on desk one, full screen.

raublekick
April 3rd, 2007, 05:29 PM
i think the best setup i ever had was with XFCE. i just had a panel on the bottom that only used about the middle third of the screen, but i was able to cram a menu button, 3 launchers, a window list*, orage clock, a systray, and a weather and battery applet. now, i use 1920x1200 resolution so the middle third of my screen is fairly large, but still, i fit all of that on a modestly sized panel.

http://entropy.good-evil.net/xubuntuscreen.png
this is an old screenshot of mine that roughly shows what i had, but i removed a lot from the panel to make it smaller than what is in the screenshot.

i should try to get something similar in gnome when i get home.

what gnome can't do is give me is the XFWM mouse capabilities. the optimal panel pales in comparison to the ability to get a menu with a right click and a window list with a middle click.

i really wish metacity would add that sort of support... (or does it and i just don't know?)

*XFCE has a nice window list applet that will let you set the windows it sees to just icons instead of icons + text, and it also stacks into rows if the panel is tall enough.

Brunellus
April 3rd, 2007, 06:16 PM
most of this is already there in Fluxbox. But the cool kids don't like Fluxbox because it's not as blingy.

NotPhil
April 3rd, 2007, 07:25 PM
So does anyone else feel this way? or am I alone in the dislike of the panel.

So what do you think will render the panel obsolete or advance it in the right direct?I dislike the panel too. It's cluttered, difficult to use, and it chews up screen space.

I think the way to go might be to look to the past. We could launch applications and open documents with a contextual menu from the desktop, (like the Mac used to do long ago in its menubar) and we could minimize open windows to the desktop (like OpenStep used to do), instead of trying to stick all of these things into a panel or two.

PanelFM (http://panelfm.sourceforge.net/) is a step back to the right direction, except it's built for the panel instead of the desktop, and BackStep (http://backstep.sourceforge.net/) would work for minimizing windows, except it's far from finished (it doesn't name icons, it uses the application icon instead of the document icon, and it won't line up icons on the desktop.)

OS X's dock comes pretty close to doing these things, but it takes up a lot of space. I think Linux can do better than that, if it would stop trying to imitate Windows and the Mac OS and try its own things instead.

igknighted
April 3rd, 2007, 08:37 PM
most of this is already there in Fluxbox. But the cool kids don't like Fluxbox because it's not as blingy.

I've used fluxbox, and I think when you run rox it can be nearly as "blingy" as the other WMs/DEs. The only reason I'm not using it now is beryl and superkaramba... I haven't found any widgets good enough to replace my karamba and beryl stuff like the hot corners is just too useful.

EDIT: Phil, I agree with you very much, but I think (for me at least) the ultimate solution is some type of applet that you can use a shortcut to pull up in the center of your screen with this info. I think a good karamba theme (or maybe g/adesklets for gnome users, but i've never cared for those) would be ideal until a WM builds this stuff in. I think beryl is moving towards having their own widgets to put in their widget layer, this would be perfect.

reacocard
April 3rd, 2007, 10:10 PM
You could take a look at the Mezzo DE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezzo_%28desktop_environment%29), from Symphony OS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_OS). It has a number of very new UI ideas, and the only panel-like object is the taskbar, but even that is different.

For myself, I have AWN (taskbar) and trayer (systray), and that's it for panels. Everything else is handled through stand-alone applications like screenlets and affinity. If there were a systray applet for screenlets, I could drop trayer too.

tehkain
April 4th, 2007, 03:25 AM
Thanks for the replies guys. I too think a solution using an applet would do wonders. I just got a fresh xubuntu system up and I plan on trying their applet. I am however a fan of gnome so there will be some resistance to make a switch. I just am not a fan of unnecessary clutter and redundancy how ever, and hopefully we can stop following in step and start on moving towards a system that is easy to use and effective. I am gonna peak inside the window selector applet and see If I can mod that a bit and see what occurs.

Oh and to the people who are brave enough to run without a panel I salute you. Maybe once desktop search is perfected I will be able to do this also.

igknighted
April 4th, 2007, 04:28 AM
Oh and to the people who are brave enough to run without a panel I salute you. Maybe once desktop search is perfected I will be able to do this also.

If you have a system you can fool around with try checking out the Strigi (sp) search in KDE4 (you would need to use SVN, as they aren't even to alpha/beta builds yet). I have heard that its already orders of magnitude faster then beagle, not to mention that (and this isn't realy integrated yet) it will be able to integrate searches in apps (like connecting email addresses in KMail with Kword documents and having all this meta-data available to view and edit in the file browser... its hard to describe, but the level of integration they are on pace to pull off is absolutely unprecedented... very exciting times coming up.

reacocard
April 4th, 2007, 04:39 AM
Maybe once desktop search is perfected I will be able to do this also.

Tracker+Affinity nearly achieves this already. I've been using them for the past couple weeks, no complaints. Tracker is an extremely fast and lightweight search engine, and Affinity not only searches via tracker, but it also launches apps and folders, the control center, and more, all from one nice interface. Affinity is still alpha software, but very good nonetheless.

An Ubuntu guide for Affinity is here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=385981

TravisNewman
April 4th, 2007, 04:40 AM
I'd like to see something entirely widget controlled... an idea I had was perhaps a shortcut key (ctrl+F6 or something) as well as moving the mouse to a specific corner... this would bring up a "control center" type of widget group, and you can add or remove widgets to your liking, but in this control center you have a list of your currently running apps, with customizable info levels (since you can take up more of the screen you could have a 100x100 pixel button for each app if you wanted) and the ability to run programs, access system tools, control preferences, basically access anything. But instead of being limited to two panels, you have the whole screen (or as much of it as you want). I assume that something like this is possible with Beryl's widget layer, but I don't think it's at that level yet. Plus, using a full-on animated desktop like that is overkill for the normal day to day... whenever I want to run a 3d program in windowed mode I have to kill beryl, and if that's what I was using to control the PC it would be a major hassle.

But surely something like that could be implemented fairly easily couldn't it? It could even use the same composite extensions that beryl uses, it just wouldn't have to run all the time like beryl.

igknighted
April 4th, 2007, 05:00 AM
I'd like to see something entirely widget controlled... an idea I had was perhaps a shortcut key (ctrl+F6 or something) as well as moving the mouse to a specific corner... this would bring up a "control center" type of widget group, and you can add or remove widgets to your liking, but in this control center you have a list of your currently running apps, with customizable info levels (since you can take up more of the screen you could have a 100x100 pixel button for each app if you wanted) and the ability to run programs, access system tools, control preferences, basically access anything. But instead of being limited to two panels, you have the whole screen (or as much of it as you want). I assume that something like this is possible with Beryl's widget layer, but I don't think it's at that level yet. Plus, using a full-on animated desktop like that is overkill for the normal day to day... whenever I want to run a 3d program in windowed mode I have to kill beryl, and if that's what I was using to control the PC it would be a major hassle.

But surely something like that could be implemented fairly easily couldn't it? It could even use the same composite extensions that beryl uses, it just wouldn't have to run all the time like beryl.

In many ways beryl isn't a perfect solution. I have a fast nvidia card on a rather fast computer so it works well, but others not so blessed would struggle.

The beryl widget layer is tremendous, but isn't ready for prime-time yet. I had to force it to accept karamba as widgets (it only wanted to use a/gdesklets and the monitors like conky. While I could get karamba onto the layer, often times i got unexplained windows popping up on the layer that blocked my widgets (it was something to do with karamba as the windows were blank but carried a karamba title in the titlebar). I never did get it working smooth, and since I use KDE gdesklets were out of the question and adesklets just don't offer what I want. In short, its in SVN and not the stable release because its still very much getting ironed out. Another issue is with launchers... I could launch apps from a dock on the layer, but would have to manually leave the layer. I'm sure if I played around I could find a way to trigger it to leave the layer on an action like a new window opening, but the other issues came up, so I'll wait.

melaren
April 4th, 2007, 07:43 PM
I think the dock is ideal. The dock by default is bigger than it should be, but it is a simple drag to resize, and I have it auto hide on my Macbook. When I need to use a program that isn't in my dock, I can Spotlight the program and run it. ...but from what I can see, there aren't any good docks in the repos. ...if you play with Gnome panels you can kinda make a dock, but that isn't a very good solution (i.e. minimizing apps to this panel looks tacky). It would be nice to see a dock, and alternative menu panels that are already installed, and easy to switch to. ...especially since it seems like most screenshots posted on this forum and sites like Gnome-Look are using a dock. :)

tehkain
April 5th, 2007, 12:39 PM
My only issue with the dock and our dock-like setups is that they seem to put bouncing over funtionality. I am looking for something that reduces clutter not increases CPU use. I know many of the docks have the ability to get rid of the effects but they seem to be getting alot of development focus that could be better spent else where.

I played around with the XFCE applet and I must say it is good and close. What I would like to see on gnome is a kxdocker like applet but just on a panel with no bouncing effects like a simple icon on a panel currently but with the usability of the dock. I am now running a buttonless tittle bar and soon a streamline panel will perfect my desktop.

igknighted
April 7th, 2007, 11:21 AM
I just ran into this today... seems like they took a lot of ideas from the Mezzo folk and brought it to KDE... anybody know if theres a .deb anywhere?

http://kuartetdesktop.sourceforge.net/

reacocard
April 7th, 2007, 02:54 PM
I just ran into this today... seems like they took a lot of ideas from the Mezzo folk and brought it to KDE... anybody know if theres a .deb anywhere?

http://kuartetdesktop.sourceforge.net/

Probably not. From the installation instructions it seems they don't even have a proper Makefile, which makes it more difficult to package. :(

Brian96
July 4th, 2007, 05:26 AM
I'm going to set up a new partition with Fluxbox w/ beryl and see how I manage with no panels at all. I will make one exception, and that is going to be some sort of dock that remains hidden until I call for it because I hate menus for common tasks. I use things like my browser, chat clients etc. often enough that menus are annoying. On the rare occasion I pull up, say, gparted then I can deal with menus... but for common stuff launchers are soo much more efficient.

Screenshots will soon follow.

EDIT: Not going as planned... if I had thought this through I would have remembered that since fluxbox is a WM as is beryl, I cannot use both... I need a DE, or to set up beryl as its own session in GDM. So I am trying with Xfce, but Xfce hates when you get rid of all the panels. It lets me do it, but when it starts up the last panel is back.

I need a newer beryl version to do some of the things I want, and I might even try going to KDE so I can use SuperKaramba. Right now adesklets, nice as they are, just aren't cutting it. Widgets are becoming exceedingly important without panels, but I like that. I feel like the widgets are more functional, the issue is using them. Luckily beryl has the hot screen corners so I can fade to the desktop when I hit the right corner... this is neat. Awkward right now, but once I get used to what corner is what then I think it will be very efficient.

A couple more things to figure out... (1) with KDE I think I can get different wallpapers on the sides of the cube... very helpful since they are not numbered ATM, and (2) with the newer beryl version there is a widget layer, so if I can set a screen corner to bring the widget layer to the front then I will seriously be in business.

Did you ever find a way to get Xfce to let you permanently remove all panels?

I've been playing around with a clean interface at work using Xfce and Beryl. My "ideal" interface would be a sort of hybrid of these two plus some E17 stuff. Here is what I would like:

--a completely clean desktop (except for a clock locked to all desktops)
--all mouse controls--left-click for full menu, right-click for custom favorite apps menu (like E17), and mouse-scroll to switch desktops
--configurable hot spots in the corners
--Beryl's window-switchers ("scale" and scrolling alt+tab with previews, depending on my mood at the moment)
--I think I could also get into widgets, and something like what panickedthumb suggested would be cool.

fuscia
July 4th, 2007, 06:34 AM
when using openbox, i have the gnome-control-center added to my right-click menu. i also have two panels setup in the right-click menu with both on and off commands. the middle-click menu can act as a dock, if i don't feel like using a panel, as all the open apps are there listed (i pasted it on to the pic below).

macogw
July 4th, 2007, 06:57 AM
I do most everything with keyboard shortcuts. In Beryl, I mapped a bunch of programs to the keyboard (the Super key never gets used for anything--ctrl is regular accelerators, alt is menus...super's unused--so I put it and the first letter of a program to launch the program). I rarely have to use the menu because of it. Still, since I dislike mice, I would like a way for the Fluxbox-style menu to come up without having to find a spare bit of desktop to right click on.

RedSquirrel
July 4th, 2007, 06:27 PM
I've recently dropped the panel/toolbar.

I use Fluxbox with a lot of keyboard shortcuts. The Windows keys Super_L and Super_R are set to open the Fluxbox right-click menu for the rare times that I need it.

I also shade windows when necessary rather than minimizing (iconifying) them.

At the bottom of my desktop, I have a one-line conky and fbpager. I could get rid of them too, but I find they provide useful information while remaining unobtrusive. ;)

init1
July 4th, 2007, 09:32 PM
After about 12 years of using a panel/toolbar centered interface I think it is time for a change. The basic panel is still essentially the same panel we seen in windows 95. The only difference is we figuired out how to throw more buttons and info on it. So now to the topic: Does anyone else find the panel, task list, and notifacation area as being a vestige that we seem unable to escape.

Right now we have one button to launch something. One area to say its working and maybe another to select it if its in your notification area. Then we throw a a clock and a bunch of other controls into the mix and we have a cluster f^&!@.

I am not really an apple fan boy but I would venture to say that they are atleast trying to move the idea of the the toolbar forward(they are not alone in this). I do enjoy apples toolbars because they do group many of these functions into a usable area. Sadly they can't change radically since they are trying to pull windows user and allow them to have a degree of understanding at the same time. The apple method is not perfect either. They have 2 bars doing the job one could if they reduced dock object size.

So does anyone else feel this way? or am I alone in the dislike of the panel.

So what do you think will render the panel obsolete or advance it in the right direct?

My best bet is the search function like Deskbar.. but the average lazy user lacks the patience and skill(this it's self is sad) to type.
If you want a new and different UI, try Symphony. I like the mezzo desktop, and it doesn't have any panels. The OS is poor, but the UI is nice.
In Mepis, I just use 9wm. No panel, no clutter. Not even any window decorations. Simple and easy. Same with dwm and lwm.

Brian96
July 7th, 2007, 06:49 PM
Did you ever find a way to get Xfce to let you permanently remove all panels?

I've been playing around with a clean interface at work using Xfce and Beryl. My "ideal" interface would be a sort of hybrid of these two plus some E17 stuff. Here is what I would like:

--a completely clean desktop (except for a clock locked to all desktops)
--all mouse controls--left-click for full menu, right-click for custom favorite apps menu (like E17), and mouse-scroll to switch desktops
--configurable hot spots in the corners
--Beryl's window-switchers ("scale" and scrolling alt+tab with previews, depending on my mood at the moment)
--I think I could also get into widgets, and something like what panickedthumb suggested would be cool.

For the record, it seems that Xfce finally quit auto-starting the panel every time. However, it was apparently only "partially" running Beryl. That is, the desktop cube was there, but it was using xfwm window properties (theme, switcher, etc.). So I added a "beryl-manager" command to the auto-start programs and it seems to be fine. If I could just figure out how to bind a "favorite apps" to the left-mouse over desktop then I would have pretty much an ideal setup for me.