Re: Some feedback

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt myrealbox com>]

On Jul 6, 2006, at 1:08 AM, Radu Olaru wrote:
> I did not knew exactly to who should I write, nor did I found any  
> explicit email on the gnome site, so here goes. Did you noticed how  
> are modern desktops evolving? They try to be as dialog-less as  
> possible.

<http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=151250154&size=o>

> Gnome is great in evey way but it has too many dialogs opening at  
> every step. Copying dialog,

All versions of Windows (including Vista), and all versions of Mac OS X  
(including 10.4), use a progress window when copying.
<http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Articles/Sources/ 
Windows%20Vista%20Beta%201%20Review/Images/CopyingFile.png>
<http://inessential.com/images/TigerCopyWindow.png>

So which "modern desktops" are you referring to? :-)

> Package Update progress dialog and so on.

As far as I know, Gnome doesn't have a Package Update program. (Maybe  
you are referring to Synaptic?)

> My suggestion would be to make a small applet responsable of showing  
> every background task's progress and cut down every progress dialog.
> This way the whole desktop will be cleaner and less windows will pop  
> when you least expect. If it's a background job, why displaying it's  
> progress in a window?
> ...

Because one of the use cases for progress windows is, "Can I turn off  
the computer yet?" And another is, "Can I eject this CD yet?" An applet  
would not be visible enough for either of these cases, because you may  
be glancing at the computer occasionally while doing other work  
relatively far away.

You do have a point in that progress windows are overused. There are  
three common ways to reduce them:
*   If there is a parent window, show progress in the parent window
    instead. (Sound Juicer does this well; Synaptic does not.)
*   If two or more tasks should be queued for best performance (for
    example, copying/moving to the same disk), stack their progress
    into a single progress window. (Evolution does this well; Nautilus
    does not.)
*   If the same kind of long-lasting task (for example, uploads/
    downloads) is often done intermittently, provide a normal window to
    list these activities. (Epiphany does this well; Evolution does
    not.)

Cheers
--
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/