Add control to switch workspace type in the workspace side panel (?)

[aeschylus]

No description provided.

[cbeer]

I'm not sure what you mean by workspace type?

[ggeisler]

I think I know what @aeschylus means by workspace type (if he means switching into a different workspace mode that provides alternative windowing behavior, because we expect that no windowing system will provide all the workspace behavior we deem necessary), but I don't think we know yet that we will need workspace types (I certainly hope we can avoid needing them) so it seems premature to say a design is needed to accommodate them. I'd rather we wait to resolve the windowing system decisions before saying workspace types are a requirement that needs to be designed for.

If @aeschylus just means "tile mode" versus "freeform mode", we do have a workspace tools menu affordance for switching into tile mode (switching from tile mode to freeform would just happen if the user moves a window in the workspace, I think):

[aeschylus]

@ggeisler Yes, this is what I meant. I put this here as a placeholder ticket for discussion to lump in with a bigger ticket when Shaune and I get a chance to bring all this together.

I don't think it's possible to switch into the react-grid-layout kind of system from a freeform system that easily. There are more subtle, global changes that take place in that case. The simple part would be all windows resize and reposition themselves into the grid, but also the scrolling behaviour changes/is added, and any kind of pan or zoom of the workspace, or ability to drag the window outside of the workspace area goes away.

React-grid layout supports dragging windows, but has very specific affordances for how they are placed/contained in the given viewport extent. So I don't think clicking and dragging provides enough information on the user's intent to transition the workspace into freeform mode (which I take to mean "panning, growable extent to place windows in precisely controlled, overlapping positions").

There is also the tiled workspace type à la react mosaic, which fixes the extent in both directions, and seamlessly divides the space while expressing a comparison relationship for easy sharing/reproducibility across device sizes.

[jvine]

Related: #1757 (master windowing ticket)

[jvine]

Created two tickets to address this one:

Create "Select workspace type" dialog and add to workspace menu #1838
Add workspace type-specific options to workspace menu #1839

[ggeisler]

Superseded by #1838