Re: Proposal for inclusion in desktop: gnome-screensaver

[JP Rosevear <jpr novell com>]

On Tue, 2005-10-25 at 15:06 -0400, William Jon McCann wrote: 
> Hi JP,
> 
> JP Rosevear wrote:
> > I'm in favour with a couple of notes:
> > 
> > 1. I liked the UI for unlocking circa 0.13 much better than the current
> 
> I made some changes in response to Matthew Paul Thomas' analysis [1].  I 
> don't agree with all of his conclusions but overall it seemed to be 
> "less" which as we all know is "more" - so it won me over.  Also worth 
> noting is that as a result of less complexity and fewer images the 
> startup time improved significantly.
> 
> The changes were basically:
> 
>   * Show a "face image" if available

I think its wrong to assume the face stuff will be used everywhere and
then to feature it prominently, essentially forcing it to be used or to
get a meaningless (large) abstract person all the time

>   * Center user's name instead of using a tabular layout for 
> username/password fields
>   * Don't show the stock lock icon

We use tabular in lots of other places.

>   * Don't display the "Unlock" button when show the switch users options

This makes sense.

>   * Remove the progress bar

This one I don't mind so much, it drove me nuts to see "About" 53
seconds.

> We have some other bona fide user interface experts on this list so 
> maybe they can help out here.

I pinged the UI guys at novell, hopefully they have something
constructive.  I don't think they did any user tests involving screen
locking though.

> > 2. The extra settings like DPMS need to be exposed like in xscreensaver
> > or move somewhere appropriate
> 
> I'm hoping that there will soon be one place for all power management UI 
> and policy.

We need to make sure this is actually in place before we switch.

-JP
-- 
JP Rosevear <jpr novell com>
Novell, Inc.