Re: Summary of my ideas (Updated)

[bob cs csoft net]

On Sun, 21 Nov 1999, Kenneth Christiansen wrote:

> Summary of my ideas after talk with MacKiDo author. 
> ------------------------------------------------------- 
> 
> o Gnome is very good for powerusers, since there's a lot of freedom 
> of configurability. This is not so good for the newbies, or the never 
> to become powerusers. We want gnome to hit a broad audience, 
> so we need to find out how to handle this. 
> 
> > Exactly... allowing some configurability might not be bad... if it is all 
> > visually denoted, there are rules for what a control shape must include to 
> > denote behavior... 
> 
> A solution would be to find all the places where you can configure 
> something that *really* isn't importain, and remove it. 
> Maybe we could also make a checkbox in the control-center, for 
> showing/hiding powersettings. 

Ugg. My suggestion would be to have a gnome control center option where
you can set your level.
I would set mine to guru, and it would default to beginner.
Then, in the code, there will be 
if(guru){
  display such and such button
}

That way, the beginners see only the things they need to see,
and the guru's can still have all the options inplace.

also, if you are using libglade, you can just make a beginner layout and
an advanced layout. 
> 
> o I also think that we should define some rules for the wm-theme authors, 
> so they can call their themes "gnome user friendly". This mean that 
> the buttons always does the same in such a theme; they are either 
> located in the same place, or the icon shows very well its function. 
> 
> > > You are right, this is a *big* problem with windowmanager themes, in one 
> > > theme one button is a menu popup button, in another theme, it is the destroy 
> > > the window button , ;-( 
> 
> o Preflightning would be good for file transfers, (see the mackido article) 
> 
> o Add support for a global menu, like the mac one. This has some ui 
> advantages and some people like it. It should work this way: 
> 
> We should have a little grapper area, and if you drag from a window menu 
> to the upper right of the screen (if thats the grapper area), they become global. 
> And if you drag the menu onto a window, they all become local... 
> 
> This should *NOT* be a panel. The global menu should not support applets
> (applets on a menu doesn't work), there should be no disappear arrows 
> (we don't want the newbies to say, "where's my menu???") It should be small
> and only have a gnome menu and then the menus in the active application.
> That's all. Maybe there should be an option to add a none-graphic clock on
> the right (like on macs) but definately no support for applets.
> It should also be possible to drag this global menu to one of the applications
> windows to make local menus instead. Thats one more reason for it not to
> be a panel.

O please no. Applets are great. If you really want something like this,
make an option to fix the panel in one position so you cant move the
applets and turn off the arrows and stuff.

> 
> It's about making it more userfriendly not the opposite.
> This global menu makes it more easy to hit the menu, and it gives more
> desktop space on small screens, if you're running more than one app.
> 

Never force a user into one position. That is what ms does and that is why
I no longer use windows.

> 
> Kenneth 
> 
> 
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