Re: Proposed: evolution

[Bryan Clark <bclark redhat com>]

On Thu, 2004-07-22 at 04:52 -0400, Rodney Dawes wrote:
> This is just wrong. They have quite a bit of meaning. How many Windows
> (TM) users go to look for "Spreadsheet" or "Word Processor"? They don't.
> They look for "Excel" or "Word". 

Ah, so because MS does it then it's the best thing to do?  or not.

> If I have 5 different "Web Browsers"

This is one of the worst use cases, there's no reason to design for
people wanting 5 browsers on their system at the same time.  Choice in
browsers is great, and there's nothing wrong with having (and designing
for) more than one.  But 5 web browsers?  5 applications which provide
the exact same fundamental functionality?  Why doesn't Evolution support
both moz_embed and gtkhtml in it's rendering so I can have the choice of
one or the other?  Answer is because it's ridiculous to design for all
that choice, apps get bloated with preferences and additional code, it's
better to pick the best and go with it so we can actually get something
done.

> installed and showing up in my menu, all with the same icon, how am I
> supposed to know which is which? We really need to keep project names
> around for things like this. 

Oh, I see...  Because the project names really help people understand
what the applications do and give them a better overall experience.  

This way we can have the GNOME Desktop like we've always wanted, with
Yelp Help, GCalctool Calculator, GNOME-Dictionary, GEdit Text Editor,
EOG Image Viewer, GPDF PDF Viewer, File-Roller Archive Manager.

Or maybe if we go back to putting G in front of every application?  Then
people will see that it's been integrated.  Does GEvolution seem to
work?

Or we can just do what MS does and remove the functional name, this way
we can give people the option of Yelp, GEdit, EOG, Epiphany or File-
Roller... which one opens images?

I bet when MS decides to use "MicroSoft-Calctool Calculator" to describe
their standard calculator application (instead of just Calculator)
you'll have an even stronger argument of "Look what they do!"

> And yes, we are working to make evolution
> simpler, but we are now UI/String frozen for 2.0. Not that there should
> not be multiple desktop entries for each major component (having one for
> exchange or brainread probably doesn't make sense), which show up as
> "Evolution Mail" or "Evolution Calendar". In fact, there is a patch
> lying around somewhere that does exactly that. 

If this is just a freeze issue then that's completely different.

> But saying that generic
> names is the only way to go doesn't make sense, especially when in a
> standard environment, the user probably has several choices for what
> to use as their web browser, mail client, address book, instant
> messenger, or whatever.

If you read the guidline on the .desktop naming you'd see that we aren't
hiding all the project names for applications installed into GNOME.

What we're attempting to do is provide a GNOME branded experience.
Where you have your standard applications integrated into GNOME that
take care of your basic computing needs.  These applications are called
the exact name of the functionality that they provide *because* they are
the GNOME brand application.  We'd hope they would do most everything
you need, but obviously they can't do it all.

So then you have your 3rd part apps installed like Firefox and the like.
These applications show up as "Firefox Web Browser", while the standard
GNOME application remain "Web Browser".  It's the idea that this web
browser is the _GNOME_ web browser, it doesn't need to flash it's
project name to get people to use it.  It's supposed to be the best app
of its type and most integrated with our desktop.  When another app
comes along (like the "Flux Capacitor Web Browser") that is better and
the community votes it's inclusion we would remove the existing app and
replace it with the new one.  So the "Flux Capacitor Web Browser" now
takes the name of "Web Browser", signifying the default and hopefully
best experience app available to GNOME.

Cheers,
~ Bryan

> 
> On Wed, 2004-07-21 at 18:07 -0400, Bryan Clark wrote:
> > > Letting Evolution be Evolution is
> > > just fine, so long as we're not throwing in the corporate bias (Novell
> > > Evolution, Ximian Evolution, etc.)
> > 
> > That doesn't make sense.  Project names have little to no meaning to
> > people using the applications, this is why we require functional names
> > to appear instead.
> > 
> > ~ Bryan
> 
> 
-- 
Bryan Clark <bclark redhat com>
Red Hat Desktop Design Ninja