On 08-Apr-05 Anthony Anson wrote:
The message 200504081254.55693.bdi-emc@ntlworld.com from Paul bdi-emc@ntlworld.com contains these words:
From the user perspective, I found Windows to be very limiting.. Only one virtual desktop, and no text consoles.
I've never worked out why you would need more than one 'desktop'.
Aside from a bit of ambiguity about "desktop" (I assume this is meant to be the lots of different screens you can switch to from the screen you're working on at the moment: I used to call these "desktops" but now call them "workspaces" because of the usage of "desktop" in KDE and GNOME to mean the whole layout of the screen), I have a number of motives for using several of these.
For instance, my laptop has 10 of these on the GNOME desktop.
In normal kitchen-table use, I reserve: -- No 1 for my calendar and addressbook (running on my fixed box A and sending these over the LAN using X); -- No 5 for email things: the MUA (XFMail) window for reading & composing etc (sent from fixed box A)., an xterm to fixed box A for accessing my home dir on A; an xterm to root on A for adminny things including triggering the mail sending when I go on line; an xterm to my fixed box B which has the modem attached, so that I can initiate the dialup. And it also has windows for kppp when I'm dialled up so that I can monitor traffic if I want to. -- No 10 for my browser.
The other 7 workspaces get used for a variety of things, but I'm in the habit of keeping certain things on specific ones so that I know where they are without thinking. E.g.
-- When I'm doing statistical analysis with R, typically this goes in WS 8, where there will be 2-4+ windows (1 for R, 1 for showing graphics output, 1 for editing command files, 1 or more for displayiong help files); I may flick some of those windows over to WS 9 (you can do this by dragging the thumbnail from one panel of the Workspace Swticher to another)
-- If while doing this, I'm also writing a report, I will have groff typically in WS 7, where there will be an editing window using 'vim', a 'gv' window showing the formatted text, an auxiliary xterm for accessing system files when needed, and the xterm from which I started all this (on which any error messages from groff will be posted).
This leaves me, so far, with 5 which do not have habitual roles, which I use any time I want to do something else without cluttering the above workspaces. Often I use one or more for logins to boxes A and B (e.g. if I want to refer to documentation stored on B).
The point of all this is that a group of windows which are involved in a single task sit on the same workspace. They do not need to be interefered with by other windows when I switch between tasks, since all I need then is to switch to another workspace where all the windows for that other task are sitting, ready and properly arranged. This is much easier than maximising and minimising all these windows on a single screen (or, worse still, simply dumping them on top of each other like a pile of unsorted underwear -- and yes, Tony, I'm mindful of your comment about top-posting!).
Another instance where multiple workspaces come into their own was illustrated recently: I've spent a good fraction of the last few weeks sitting in at a public inquiry, and I had the main Proofs of Evidence on my laptop as PDF files. There are 182 of these documents (including appendices) and, at any time, people are examining from 5-10 of these.
So I just put up each one in a separate instance of Acrobat reader on a different workspace, and was able to follow the proceedings by flipping around between desktops. Again, much quicker than the equivalent operation would have been using the single screen you get in Windows. If a new document is called up I just switch to a new desktop and start a new instance (I already have an xterm in each of the 10 so that I can quickly scan a directory for the document needed and start the Reader).
There are many other advantages of multiple workspaces (OK desktops if you prefer), but the above illustrates the reasons why I find them so convenient.
Best wishes to all, Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 08-Apr-05 Time: 20:39:46 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------