managing workspaces in unity / cinnamon

[phill1978]

hi,

Im not sure what its called but the figure of 8 icon at the top of the screen is really good ! at first i didnt like the mint 12 layout as it didnt seem to make sense to have the 'menu' bar at the bottom as well as the unity? top bar.. so i removed the bottom bar and i think its pretty good as it is like that. I hope cinnamon doesnt remove this top bar now, ive grown to love the simple app switching rather than fiddling with windows behind windows,

anyways my suggestion:

Workspaces? where are they on unity? i think there should be the ability to either add the figure of 8 / unity icon to the traditional menu bar where you can add workspaces

AND

When in unity? at the bottom left or right of the screen allow for x4 transparent desktops (or more) which can be switched too so that not only do you have current app switching on desktop 1 , but you can move to desktop 2 and then see the current apps and switch ! this would be an exellent feature

ohh and somehow bring back desktop cube as it doesnt work for me

thanks

[xenopeek]

Suggestions for Unity you would better submit to the Ubuntu brainstorm (http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/) I think. Unity is not developed by Linux Mint and it is unlikely that there will be an official Linux Mint Unity edition.

As for your Cinnamon remark, with the Cinnamon Settings you can configure to have a panel at the bottom (default), at the top (like Gnome 3/Unity), or both at the bottom and the top (like Gnome 2/Gnome Fallback).

[phill1978]

Suggestions for Unity you would better submit to the Ubuntu brainstorm (http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/) I think. Unity is not developed by Linux Mint and it is unlikely that there will be an official Linux Mint Unity edition.

As for your Cinnamon remark, with the Cinnamon Settings you can configure to have a panel at the bottom (default), at the top (like Gnome 3/Unity), or both at the bottom and the top (like Gnome 2/Gnome Fallback).

thanks for the response.

with cinnamon will i get to keep the figure of 8 icon on the new/traditional -menu bar ? so i can have the option ? its actualy great for switching between applications, really great. I chose mint because the ugly permanent unity side bar is actually pointless! and i have removed the menu bar at the bottom because two bars is a waste of space, especially since the menu bar is like a reduced version of whats on mint 11 ohh and the colours dont match so mint 12 by default looks oddball to the new user, integration is whats needed, i hope cinnamon delivers this

btw what is the figure of 8 thing called so i can stop calling it the figure of 8 thing

[xenopeek]

The figure 8 thing is a feature of Gnome Shell + MGSE, not Unity. I think it is called the Activities button, and it takes you to the full screen Activities Overview (just as moving your mouse to the upper-left screen corner does). This is not present on Cinnamon, where instead the upper-left screen corner takes you to Expo mode (similar as in Compiz) where you see all your workspaces at once and can add and remove workspaces.

Development of MGSE has been dropped, in favour of Cinnamon as replacement for Gnome Shell + MGSE. Linux Mint 13 will not have the figure 8 thing. But perhaps Cinnamon will have an applet or extension that can do something similar; http://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/.

[phill1978]

The figure 8 thing is a feature of Gnome Shell, not Unity. I think it is called the Activities button, and it takes you to the full screen Activities Overview (just as moving your mouse to the upper-left screen corner does). This is not present on Cinnamon, where instead the upper-left screen corner takes you to Expo mode (similar as in Compiz) where you see all your workspaces at once and can add and remove workspaces.

thats interesting.. hmm

expo mode will be good as long as its super quick and resource low to swap between open programs / windows or workspaces.

just a small thing will the windows in expo play videos? at the moment when i use the activities button i can still see youtube playing along side my other windows and will it be easy to swap to desktop (the minimised applications version) like on the activities panel now?

expo does in theory seem to make sense when mated (no pun) to cinnamon as long as its as slick as activities and customisable with drop shadows, reflections on expo pages and not just a flat 2D selection box approach

[phill1978]

hi,



cinnamon is great! tried it, seems like the perfect balance now. modern traditional menu (much sleeker than mint 11) and hot corner !

perfect so far, will play around with some settings but one thing concerns me.. i do want mint to be different from ubuntu but i would never want it to stray away from being able to use all the same software ubuntu can, i hope that mint can jog along side ubuntu in development whilst remaining an option for those who dont like unity.

[xenopeek]

Not sure about the animated part for videos, but you can see some screenshots and introduction to expo mode here: http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/?p=182 (While typing this you already updated you found Cinnamon to be great )

Linux Mint main edition continues to be based on Ubuntu. With both Unity and Cinnamon running as the user interface on top of Gnome 3, I think all applications for Ubuntu will work on Linux Mint main edition.

[phill1978]

sorry for not replying sooner. I am officially enjoying cinnamon

not sure how to assign firefox to always start on workspace 2 though ? hmm.. is it even possible, im sure i read somewhere it was?

not much more to say really other than for the love of god dont medle with this for linux 13,14,15 ! keep the gui , it may be tried and tested, even old fashioned to the touch screen tablet generation but it works the best,it works for productivity which is why i use a computer.

now if someone can just answer my xbmc question i can save my self quite a lot of time (and money) and use windows7 even less !