Iconify gadget on Workbench windows too?

A sort of popular survey
What do you think, could it be a good idea to have an iconify gadget into the Workbench windows?

The ability to iconify any system windows as if they were normal application windows could be interesting

Yes or No?

especially if dragging an icon onto it did a move/copy same as the window does, sure why not.

Although, iconify in general needs a rethink, it's a bit of a mess.

@NinjaCyborg

Yep it's an interesting consideration, unfortunately the Workbench is extremely basic.
Developer of AmiBench seems to have been introducing something about

https://wiki.amiga.org/images/8/8b/A1200NG_Amibench_1.png

Digressing a bit personally I also like the Windows like functionality of changing (resize) the window size by double clicking on the bar

Personally, I find general window management in AmigaOS to be
fantastically better than lesser platforms.

Windows in the "stack" stay where you left them (above/below
each other) and you can use any without changing that. The
zoom gadget between two sizes & the shift-click to full screen
is great! Double clicking (w/ commodity) to bring a window to
the front is simple.

Every other OS misses those basic things. The snap to full
screen when you touch the screen title bar in loonix & doze
is beyond annoying.

But AmigaOS iconification could be better.

In the Workbench, I'd suggest it would be at its best if the
windows weren't specific to a specific drive/drawer. Digging
into a directory tree leaves you with a lot of windows -
iconifying each would be a real mess, IMHO.

But getting the file view to use just one window would need a
major WB re-write to accomplish, I expect.

Maybe with that, a quick to navigate column view (a la osx -
but with intelligent sizing) could be added?

Interesting topic in any case!

Thanks,

PJS

totally agree with @PJS on the amiga way of window management, with a couple of caveats:

- There's never been a true standard for Zoom behaviour - some (typically fixed size windows, like Calculator) minify to a title bar (in which case why not just iconify), others toggle between two different user set sizes i.e. the current size and the previous size, others toggle between 'current size' and 'full size'. Of course, since it's up to the software to decide what to do with the zoom event there's no way to retrofit a different solution. but it would be nice to set some guidelines for how it *should* be done albeit there's not much new software coming out these days...

- Thanks largely to MUI, for better or worse, Iconify became a defacto standard, I think because of MUI but not a standard set by cool people like Martin Taillefer, RJ Mical or Dale Luck, so it's always felt a bit awkward. However it has been adopted in OS4/3.2 formally as a thing. At least the behaviour is obvious and consistent - hide the window, make an AppIcon on workbench. Open the appicon again - unhide the window. I'd like to see other apps able to 'hook' into appicon to replace/augment the workbench functionality so i can send iconified apps to a dock instead for example.

For me arguably the zoom, depth and iconify gadgets would benefit from an overhaul and consolidation. zoom to title bar is not really any different from iconify is it? i mean, if you make an app zoom to title bar only, like calculator or iconedit, what you're really saying is 'get this out the way'. While depth gadget would benefit from some screen management features like 'move to pubscreen' not that public screens were ever properly implemented either...

Having said that it's not as if other platforms do it better. Even the one you'd expect to do it best (Mac) has problems still. While close and iconify are consistent, it's green 'zoom' button is a mess, so much so they added a whole submenu to it in recent releases...

@pjs

Quote:

This would probably be the most useful feature ever (imho), the chaotic management of the many windows to reach a directory is probably one of the main reasons that force users to adopt third-party solutions like Filer etc

The only new feature in this field introduced in OS4 is the possibility to automatically close the parent window when one of its sub-directories is opened... yep nothing revolutionary but better than nothing


Quote:

I think that Wanderer on AROS already has this feature, maybe a bit rough and not comparable to that of Ambient on MorphOS, but it's definitely something

@samo79

Quote:

I personally would welcome such a function for the Workbench, it is often the case that you have many windows open, but later need the main window again to quickly get to the main directory and so you could simply store it and retrieve it when needed.

Sometimes I find these many windows that are opened a bit annoying because it takes up a lot of space on the desktop. With an icon gadget the user could decide for himself whether to use it or not, but I am in favour of it.

I say yes, that would be cool

@pjs

Quote:You can - sort of - get this by holding down Right Amiga while double-clicking on a sub-drawer, that makes the parent drawer's window close automatically as the new one opens.

(This and other useful tricks can be learnt in the WBHelp guide, BTW.)

Best regards,

Niels

Yes, it would be really nice to have a function in the window to iconify like on Mac.

@nbache

LOL... I vaguely remembered that one along with a setting in
Workbench Prefs that was supposed to automatically close the
parent window when opening a child.

A long time I tried it, but the problem was a lack of an easy
way (yes, I know there's a contect menu entry) to get back to
the parent window.

IIRC, I think even filed an enchancement request years
(decades?) ago for a way to click back to the parent. ;)

Interestingly enough, I just tried the setting in WB Prefs and
it appears to have broken over the years. But the R-Amiga
double-click does still work.

c'est la vie,

PJS

Funny enough, as I was messing around, clicking on my Workbench
windows... one time the window iconified!

I'd completely forgotten installing and running the commodity
called "AmiSnap"...

https://os4depot.net/?function=showfil ... /workbench/amisnap_fx.lha

It iconifies most any window by just clicking while holding down
a qualifier key.

How do I forget these things! So many things to play with
on Amigas.... :D

PJS

@pjs

I tried it out and didn't know there was such a great tool. It works really well and the great thing is the animation of how it is iconified and reopened. This is exactly what should be available as a standard function in the WB window of the Workbench.

Using keyboard ALT+left click is not optimal, but it works well, it would be better just to use right click menu iconize when selecting the window.

Thanks for the hint about this great tool

@pjs

Quote:Works fine here (although on beta right now, but I don't think it was fixed recently). Was it maybe a side effect of the commodity you wrote about in the next post? Or do you see problems even without that? If so, please describe further.

Best regards,

Niels

@pjs
Quote:
For this reason I wrote a little proggy called "AlignWindows", which is available on OS4Depot. And as I am the author, there is an off chance that 'it works as advertised'.
It works on drives and directories which have an icon of their own. All other windows happen to open at the standard location somewhere at the left upper corner.
But I also have a commodity in the works, which puts those directories in a more ordered position, read: in the (already) aligned stack. But hey, as summer is approaching
in the Northern Hemisphere, don't hold your breath.

OldFart

@nbache

Indeed it looks like there's some issue between AmiSnap and the
Workbench iconification functionality. I disabled AmiSnap in
WBstartup and WB iconification worked after a reboot.

It even worked for a little when I started AmiSnap back up...
Until I got a lock up. ;)

So it's one or the other (or maybe some CX priority tweaking
could help?). hmmm...

As it now stands (with my v53.60 workbench), I think I'll just
keep the WB function off and AmiSnap on for what that gives all
windows.

Thanks,

PJS

@OldFart

One of these days I'll have to take a look at AlignWindows.
It seems like it could help with the clutter of all the open
windows.

As it is now, it's always a matter of a lot of snapshotting to
get things right, until something changes. ;) But still not a
big deal.

But really the "mess" I had in mind was more if you were a bunch
of directories deep in the tree and ended up with a stack of
window icons. There's not enough room on the WB! ;)

A fantasy idea...

Maybe the icons of a single "stack" of directories could be
made to go into the a single WB icon?

When you single-clicked on it, it would pop-up a list of all the
succeeding dirs to let you open just one? When you double-clicked,
all the windows would reopen in one fell swoop?

Of course, having a "back" or "parent: button in the current WB
window would still be good to have.

Well food for thought...

Thanks,

PJS

@pjs

Quote:Ah, good, thanks for confirming.

Quote:That's a good guess, I'd think that could help. Try setting the AmiSnap CX_PRIORITY lower than 0 - it might just do the trick.

Best regards,

Niels

@samo79

That would be nice, so we can iconify them and stock them "all toghether" in one place and then re-open them when needed.. It would be nice to put them inside a dockbar maybe?

@nubechecorre

Iconification like this would be a bit similar to the system tray of Windows

I wonder how one could keep track of which icon belongs to which window.

The most obvious idea would be to have the path name as the icon name.. but that would look horrible and impossible on the workbench.

unless an option in Workbench prefs is added to "shorten" the icon names (which would come handy in other scenarios as well), and the full icon name could scroll in the name field or imposed on top, when the mouse pointer is over the icon.

I wonder, if it just would be easier to implement a navigational file manager all along instead. Maybe an option in Workbench Prefs to switch between navigational and spatial metaphor. ;)

In the meantime FastHide from ZTools is rather handy. But I do use a combination of "DepthMenu" and the default keyboard shortcuts "alt-up" and "alt-down" with "Close Parent automatically" when I need it.


Also "Open Drawer.." in the context menu is very handy. I use it all the time