How to live without windowshading?
Folks:
This discussion, Is anyone able to use Unsanity haxies with Lion? seems to have run its course. In summary, it seems:
• The answer is "no", Unsanity haxies are unusable with 10.7.x
• Unsanityisn't showing signs of life and, even if they revive, it may be impossible for a third party to implement haxies in 10.7+
• Apple is showing no signs of providing these functions built-in.
• Some people --including me-- are very frustrated by the lack of some functions formerly provided by these haxies.
I'm going to concentrate on the most significant issue for me and for at least some of the people on the above-referenced thread: Windowshading. How can we live without windowshading in 10.7 and beyond? Windowshading, long ago, was built in to the Mac OS. I liked having many, sometimes dozens of files open, easily identifiable, easily restored to full size, arranged on the desktop, generally approximating my workflow, without taking up more than a thin horizontal strip of the desktop for each. I liked being able to arrange these on the desktop as required by my workflow, especially when things are evolving.
- - -
Since Apple does continue to support windowshading in one 10.7 app --Stickies-- it is clear that this function still has some validity. Should this give us windowshading-wanters hope?
Probably not. I'm guessing that Apple Human Interface designers made a special exception for Stickies, as this app has doesn't save any visible files. My guess is that the HI folks feel strongly (VERY strongly) that any kind of desktop workflow-representation should be done with the file icons themselves, on the desktop or in folders. I'm guessing they see the windowshaded representations as bad compromises. I've also seen some evidence that Apple is going in the direction of reducing the distinction between "open" files and prospectively open ones. (D'oh! I wish I'd recorded some links to the articles describing this.)
Well, all in all, it seems we're not going to get windowshading. Juggling lots of open files all at once? Organizing according to workflow? What are the current options? To start: we can shove open windows partly off to the side. That's good for at most 2 or three files per screen edge, left, right, and bottom (with some interference from the Dock) and isn't necessarily so helpful as left and right-shoved files are likely difficult to identify as their titles fall off-screen.
Shrinking to the dock? Yeah, that works -- but in my view only for a very limited number of files.
What about using the solution the HI folks seem to be pushing for, organizing the file icons on the desktop or inside folders? Credit where credit is due: for image files in folders, in cases in which the file icon is a representation of the image, with Finder View-->Show View Options-->Show icon preview enabled, the HI folks have provided a brilliant solution: just use the icon size slider at lower right as necessary. For most images I've worked with, the icon preview can easily be made big enough to recognize and sort each image. None of the image files need be open. Cool.
For me this applies less well to non-image files. Text: I'm imagining sorting hundreds of short files each with a brief bit of text inside (e.g. quotes) all formatted at 9 point. I don't think this will work so well: for me, such text isn't readable even at maximum icon magnification. I simply don't have enough experience with miscellaneous files that don't fit in these categories. Do "minor" 3rd party apps provide icon preview images? (Full disclosure: just now is the first time I've even tried this with non-image files. D'oh!)
Another approach that works for me is to use Mission Control and multiple Desktops/Workspaces. In general, this gives me access to many more open files in workflow-related groups. In my opinion, Mission Control still needs some improvements, and I understand it doesn't work for everyone.
What am I missing? Are there other techniques that can help me (us) live without windowshading? Can anyone find information about what the HI designers have in mind, where they are going?
2.66 GHz Intel Core i5-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.7)
