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One of the features that most desktop environments have done away with is minimize to desktop, or "iconify" as it used to be called. Basically, whenever you clicked the minimize button, an icon would appear on the desktop representing the program in it's minimized state. Such icons could then be arranged in line with the user's preference. For an example, you could look at CDE or fvwm.

I think that the next logical progression for modern desktop environments would be to minimize apps to a thumbnail preview on the desktop. These previews would be updated real-time, and could be arranged like icons however the user sees fit. Double-clicking on the icon will bring the program back to the front. There would be options to arrange thumbnails to a grid, and sort them as well. For a modern example, see miniMIZE for Windows XP ( http://aquaria.za.net/content/view/133/32/ ). This would also allow the option to recover real-estate by removing the kicker panel. When running many programs simultaneously, I believe that taskbars get too cluttered. Minimize to desktop thumbnail would be an elegant option for the progression of KDE.

I agree with you. But it has to better than on OpenBox / LXDE I had some problems with it.
Here's a idea that would go well with this idea:
Snap-together dock
So you could snap together iconyfied windows.

That is a great idea. I never thought about snapping together the thumbnails even though I remember this from Windowmaker.

Vote UP both hands.

It might be possible to show icon on desktop without "iconifying" the app main window. Just to see what's running now.

I just found a program that provides similar functionality on Windows Vista called ThumbWin. I am attaching a screenshot to provide another example of the functionality. Given that KDE is much more flexible than Vista, I assume that users who choose to use this functionality will at least turn the task manager off (Thumbwin for Vista does not provide this option, unfortunately).

http://www.uncg.edu/~jdkiser2/images/Desktop.jpg

Is this how e17 does it? Might be able to gut some code from that if that's the case.

MasterC wrote:Is this how e17 does it? Might be able to gut some code from that if that's the case.

I (personally) don't know I always thought that E17 does the same thing as KDE does with taskbar thumbnails that is, that it takes a screenshot and present it.
But I don't know if E17 does that as part of panel or as a part of window management.
If it's the first then it's same as "thumbnail aside" if it's the second then it's really like the desired effect.
Also opnebox has this effect, maybe others *boxes too.

Here's a much simpler implementation:

I'd prefer the icons to line up vertically though.

Since the task manager like plasma widgets already have the ability to show a preview window on mouseover, couldn't this be done with a plasma widget which just shows the previews by default? Or even as an option in the existing task manager?

There is a plasmoid in the playground that works pretty well, and does something similar to your idea.

Plasmoid is called Embedded Window..

Here is a screenshot:
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/3389/desktop1.png

I wonder how it does that - hopefully not with Xembed...

This could somehow be combined with:
brainstorm.php?mode=idea&i=65756

...if done correctly.

@Madman
It's a Xembed-plasmoid.

There could be an alternative to update it periodically, save it in a QImage and allow transformation.

I agree with sceazy, this might be better implemented as a task manager that shows thumbnails instead of icons.

Another possible consideration: clicking-and-dragging tasks from the task bar directly onto the desktop and having a miniature, 'preview' icon appear as the application's, 'task'.