Re: Summary of my ideas (Updated)

["Andrew S. Zbikowski" <zibby ringworld org>]

Allright, my first reaction to this was a horrified shreik followed by
countless curses. After calming down, I was prepared to address this in a
more rational maner.

Here goes...

| 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. 

When I first started linux, and gnome for that matter, after migrating
from windows, I was instantly attracted to all the configurability of
gnome. "Ohhh...lookie at all the purdies...I feel powerful now..." and
similr feelings of extacy ran through my mind. 

Another thing that attracted me was how easy it was to create a user menu
compared to the sometime cryptic methods that window managers sometimes
use. Point, click, new item...I like that. The main gnome menu is nice in
that it keeps track of most everything I have installed (via it's own
methods and the debian,redhat, and KDE menu systems) but all that can be
confusing and repetitive at times. My user menu contains all the apps I
use on a regular basis and the ones I don't use so often but I still find
useful from time to time. 

Being able to add menus to the GMC desktop might be nice, since it brings
up a nice menu when I right click on the desktop anyway (New > Terminal,
gnumeric, gimp, etc, my Handy Right Click Menu > program1, program2,
program3, etc...just a thought.) Since packages seem to add them selves to
the new menu wether I like it or not, there's probally a way to do it, and
I could find it if I dug through documentation maybe.

| 
| > 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. 
| 

That, is a bad idea. In effect, you're cripling your own software. It's
almost worse in this case since gnome is supposed to be free, not
"cripleware" That's something of a vauge anology and doesnt tie in that
well, but I think it gets the idea across. If a user doesn't see what the
capiblites are, will they ever find them and use them? I know I haven't
read any gnome documentation, and I've gone as far as recompiling
gnome-core to my liking.

| 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 , ;-( 

Just because you give them rules doesn't mean they'll follow them. To my
knowelege, there is still not a window managet that is "fully" gnome
complient. It's not a bad thought though. Unix enviorments by nature,
on the otherhand, aren't consistent between machines. As long as the
ability remains to recompile gnome, there can be an infinite number or
reconfigurations and differences between gnome enviorments. 
 
| 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: 

Seems to me there is already a global menu. 

| 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.

Do you have any idea how many time I get asked "where is my start menu?"
when I'm working tech support? Somehow a user always manages to drag the
taskbar off the screen and not know what they did anyway. If it can be
hidden, they'll find a way to use it. If it can't be hidden, you get
complaints for "power users"

| 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.

Personally, a small screen isn't a concern for me. I find that even at my
high res the panel can take up too much room. Microsoft picked the size of
their taskbar well, probally a result of millions of dollars of research
or dumb luck.

The global menu idea is workable, but it seems that the panel allready
has that feature. I'm sitting here comparing the mentioned mac menu to the
one you suggesting and the allready existing menu system.

The main items seem to be:
Applications (Program Files)
Control Panel
Favorites (what the hell, there a feature i don't use on mac or windows)
Macontish HD (My Computer)

The menus between the three systems (Mac, Win9X, gnome) are similar enough
that a new user should be able to cross platforms and figure the menus out
with little effort. Or maybe I'm delusional and underestimating the
average linux newbie. 

Well, thats enough from me, the end user of the project. If you want to
see the results of my tweaking see
http://www.ringworld.org/~zibby/Screenshots

If you want to send comments at me, fine, but i reserve the right to use
the delete key if I feel the need. =)

|> Andrew S. Zbikowski | I find your lack of pants disturbing. <|
|>  r i n g w o r l d . o r g   |    http://www.ringworld.org  <|
|> Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes.           <|
|>  finger zibby@destiny.ringworld.org for GnuPG public key    <|