The way I normally use my Gnome(s) on PCs with lower resolution monitors is by having a single panel at the bottom of the screen, 32pix height. It seems like a good compromise for old PCs with monitors that can't do more than 800x600 or 1024x768. Stacking applets together though can be an exercise to the eye to try to quickly seperate them visually.
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If only we all could et our little annoyances fixed by having a huge website visited by thousands a day 
I'd love to see this in KDE too, I like how Windows separates all that stuff with the toolbar grippies. I always wondered why the Linux "start" button was never more prominent..
Heh, I actually wrote an applet to do this for GNOME 1.4... Too bad I don't currently have GNOME on my system... mabey if no-one else jumps on this I will install Dropline.
While waiting for the final applet, you can use multiple notification area applets. The icons of applications should only appear in the first one added.
Speaking of which, the notification area applet is a good template for the final applet; find the source for it bundled in the gnome-panel package.
Actually KDE already does this by default. You can turn the handles on or have them fade out when not in use. It isn't a separate applet, but each applet on the kicker bar has a handle.
I use apps that use the notification area, e.g. Muine, Gaim, Epiphany-download etc. so I can't use that particular applet to do a job that was not designed to do. Besides, it takes quite some memory too because it was designed to do more than a simple seperator applet.
What Eugina wants is a way to have a GtkHandleBox inside a panel applet. The problem is that a handle box does not work vertically. That is why I would suggest a Gtk[H|V]Seperator (depending if it is a vertical or horizontal panel).
I think it would fit in better as well.
(If you don't know what I mean, take a look inside glade and see the difference)
I think a more important applet would be a disk/volume applet that integrates with the new gnome-vfs volume code to allow me to easily see what volumes exsist on my system, un/mount, etc...
I think that making this using an applet is a little hacky. Shouldn't this just be something provided by gnome-panel?my system... mabey if no-one else jumps on this I will install Dropline.
I use a "Window Selector" which works a lot better, when you need to pick out a window you can't see, click on it and it comes up with a nice drop down list, much better than the taskbar paradigm.
I think that making this using an applet is a little hacky. Shouldn't this just be something provided by gnome-panel?
Yes, it probably should be - but its not, and I'm sure Eugen ia doesn't want to deal with maintaining a completely different version of gnome-panel just for her grippies. So an applet is the logical choice.
A tad off topic, but use Quick Lounge 2.1.1 to manage your Shortcut Icons. It will give you the little seperator, and allows you to move all your icons as one. It also makes management much easier.
Right Click > Add to Panel > Utilities > Quick Lounge
=)
Jason, you seem to not have read my article. I know about QuickLounge, I used to use it a lot, but it takes a lot of memory, AND it doesn't do what I am asking on the article. The seperator I am asking for is to seperate a lot of different things as you see in the second shot, not just the gnome-menu with the launchers. That's just one case.
I don't know about gnome applets, but the 'easy' way to do this is to create a custom widget (based on GtkWidget, probably) and use gtk_paint_handle () to draw the handle.
Heh... Yeah, I've been thinking about the need of this too. Such a little thing would be an obvious way to enhance usability. I sure wonder why GNOME doesn't already have this? Maybe it is because GNOME developers forget such small details nowadays when their philosophers concentrate on discussing vague big usability schemes instead?? >:-)
(sorry, I do like GNOME and especially its usability goals - though I have also recently thought of moving to XFce4 (faster, cleaner, easier to customize etc.))
"Such a little thing would be an obvious way to enhance usability."
Out of curiosity, how is it an obvious way of enhancing usability? To me it seems like a somewhat frivolous feature that some people may find useful.
You may or may not agree with the philosophy behind new features, but at least they don't blindly add things under the guise of "obviously enhancements," which in turn leads to bloat.
I'm not saying this particular applet wouldn't be useful, but at least if you wanted it to be included in GNOME you'd have to make a reasonable argument as to why it provides better usability.
> how is it an obvious way of enhancing usability?
There IS enhanced usability when you have a choice of a seperator. There are applets/icons included with Gnome that look too similar, while they act differently (e.g. check the shot, the menu logo and the icons next to it, a setup very common in Fedora and other personal setups). A seperator is greatly enhancing the visual differentiation between elements and makes it easier to the eye and to the mind.
You could argue that you wouldn't use such an applet, but you can't argue that many people would find it useful. In fact, it's more useful than other applets included on Gnome by default, like the Fish or the XEyes.
Eugenia
Available for both gnome 1 and 2...even comes with themes:
http://gqapplets.sourceforge.net/applet-div.html
Screenshot:
http://www.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~hrpakdel/div.png
Rizo
Ps. I'm not the author...
You could always add a starter (without a link) and use a pixmap that looks like a seperator. I often do that to seperate certain "blocks" of different programs.
Excellent, works just as you would hope 
Good.
if anyone knows who the developer is, and if the developer is willing to test it a bit under the new gnome 2.6.x (the last release of that software was 1.5 years ago, I would prefer to see a check-up against the latest gnome/gtk), then the subscription is his (except if someone emails me beforehand with a new implementation).
http://www.hadess.net/files/attic/gnomepanelspacerapplet.org-10.0-z...
Dated from 2002. Enjoy 
There IS enhanced usability when you have a choice of a seperator. There are applets/icons included with Gnome that look too similar, while they act differently (e.g. check the shot, the menu logo and the icons next to it, a setup very common in Fedora and other personal setups). A seperator is greatly enhancing the visual differentiation between elements and makes it easier to the eye and to the mind.
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This is assuming people *THINK* and *WORK* like you and you know the old saying about assuming something.
Then again you UI types may not be familiar with it.
It would certainly tend to explain a lot.
As for the Fish or the XEyes apps as I gather they aren't included so much for "usefulness" but rather because they've silly apps which pretty much always has been part of a "Unix Desktop".
Can you believe the cheek? Here you are complaining about the cheek but did you ever stop to consider how cheek your reply was? Good grief! Was it that important to throw these two cents in?
I'd like to offer you the simple and often stated suggestion that you simply move along if you haven't anything worthy to add to the conversation.
Can you believe the cheek? Here you are complaining about the cheek but did you ever stop to consider how cheek your reply was? Good grief! Was it that important to throw these two cents in?
I'd like to offer you the simple and often stated suggestion that you simply move along if you haven't anything worthy to add to the conversation.
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Are you very familiar with the expression "People who live in glass houses"?
>Why don't you just e-mail him
I have already emailed Bastien and gqapplets guy. And there is one more effort going on, but it didn't work on my slackware so I am waiting for a fix.
Won't it confuse people if you provide a divider that looks like a handle, but doesn't behave like one ?
NB: I didn't check the one Bastien Nocera made, and I understand that the other one doesn't look like a handle.
"Eugenia...his"
Uh, I thought Eugenia was a girl, Eugenia being a girl's name and all. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it just seemed odd to be referring to her as male.
btw, trolling makes the baby Jesus cry.
If you're referring to my comments, I suggest you read them again. If you still don't understand please quote the full text and not simply "Eugenia...his" and I shall clarify.