> Overlapping windows doesn't provide any benefit.
Just yesterday, I overlapped a tiny terminal window (resized to be very small and set to "always on top") showing the current disk space ("watch df") over the corner of a larger window which was doing a file transfer. While I agree that non-overlapping panels are better most of the time, sometimes overlapping can be useful.
> treat my Google Drive as just another folder
That illusion would fail quickly as soon as your network connection dropped. Non-local folders have fundamental differences to local folders and should be treated differently. (Local folders can be assumed to always be present unless manually removed, be fast, and unmetered; non-local folders can disappear and/or change at any time, can be slow and/or vary in speed, and might have a per-megabyte cost.)
> Overlapping windows doesn't provide any benefit.
Another example: Overlapping my work windows over the Slack window. The red "you have new mention" indicator is a poor indicator for determining the importance of the mention; being able to see the channel it occurs in at a glance is very nice for prioritization. There's no real need to see the whole slack window.
I think this is one application of the “minimized pane” example the article showed: applications still have a way to show more data than just an indicator.
Alternatively, you could let panes be resized smaller than their “native width”, and get the same effect as overlapping.
Oh yes, the ability to pin a window to the top is one of the features I miss most on Windows. You don't need it every day but when you do it saves a ton of time and clicks.
Just yesterday, I overlapped a tiny terminal window (resized to be very small and set to "always on top") showing the current disk space ("watch df") over the corner of a larger window which was doing a file transfer. While I agree that non-overlapping panels are better most of the time, sometimes overlapping can be useful.
> treat my Google Drive as just another folder
That illusion would fail quickly as soon as your network connection dropped. Non-local folders have fundamental differences to local folders and should be treated differently. (Local folders can be assumed to always be present unless manually removed, be fast, and unmetered; non-local folders can disappear and/or change at any time, can be slow and/or vary in speed, and might have a per-megabyte cost.)