Re: GNOME User Guide - draft.

["Eugene O'Connor" <Eugene Oconnor Sun COM>]

Hi Sasha,

I wrote a lot of the documentation that your comments relate to, so I'll
respond rather than Pat. 

1. Can you tell me what the default shortcut key to close a window is? I
can't find it. I found the shortcut key to minimize a window: F17. On my
keyboard, this is the Open key, but I'm sure this varies from keyboard
to keyboard. How can we generically describe this key?

I will add Ctrl+N to 1.2.3.

2. I think it would bevery useful to have this information in the User
Guide. I have mentioned sorting a column and multiselection, but only in
reference to Nautilus. I didn't see multiselection in any other
application, so I presumed it was Nautilus-specific. I am not sure yet
where is the best location for this information, but I am sure that it
should be somewhere in the User Guide. Perhaps we could get the
information together and then decide on an appropriate location?

3a. Yes, we have had a lot of discussion around this topic. 

The default configuration that I see is that the footprint icon opens
the Global Menu. If you install GNOME, then view the properties of the
footprint icon, the Menu type is Global Menu. I agree that this is
confusing. 

I had a conversation with George Lebl about this in July, and he tells
me that the plan is to remove the ability to customize the Global Menu
(that is, to create a Main Menu) and to rename the present Global Menu
to Main Menu. When this happens, this information will be a lot more
clear.

3b. I'll add this information to Chapter 3.

4. Yes, I expect the GNOME Help Browser panel object to disappear. As
far as possible, we document what we see. The help browser object is in
GNOME 1.4, that's how come it stayed in the document. 

5. I will investigate this some more and report it as a bug if
necessary.

6. It would be great if we could change this. There are also several
uses of iconify in the Control Center. What is the best way to get this
changed? To contact the developer or to report an enhancement?

7. I'll retake the screenshot. These items represent the desktop
background objects (Trash, home folder, and so on) created by gmc.

8. I am waiting until the updated version of the Help browser is
available before adding this information. We will also need to mention
the help browser in the Overview chapter.

9. That's that mystery solved. I'll have a look at it, and add a couple
of sentences on it to the User Guide. We probably only need to make a
brief reference to it.

10. I'll add that information to the Nautilus File Manager chapter.

11. What I mean by file type is a combination of the file extension and
description columns in the File Types and Programs capplet. I suppose
what I am really trying to say is "You can associate a file extension
with a MIME type". I'll try to clarify this in the text.

12. That's what I thought, I just wanted to make sure. I will add a
sentence to explain executable text files. 

These comments are useful and much appreciated - keep them coming!
Eugene

Alexander Kirillov wrote:
> 
> Here are some minor comments:
> 
> 1. In the section on window shortcuts (1.2.2) it'd quite useful to list
> shortcuts to close/minimize window - they are used very frequently. Also,
> in app. shortcuts, I'd add Ctrl+N (new document/file/game)
> 
> 2. I was thinking of adding a subsection on some common features of GTK
> GUI - non-obvious ones. Some of this  (detachable menus  and toolbars) you
> mention in 2.9, but there is more. E.g.:  resizing panes and columns in
> various list views, sorting by one of the columns, selecting multiple
> items. Maybe we should extend 2.9? Or make a new section?
> 
> 3. In section 2.5, global menu: you say that the "foot icon" and right
> click on vacant spot on the panel produce the same menu, the global menu.
> This is not so - at least in the default configuration of Gnome 1.4. The
> foot menu is "main menu"; the the one you get by right-clicking on vacant
> spot on the panel - "global menu".  They are the same originally. However,
> they are configured separately as described in 5.4. Or is there a plan to
> make "foot menu" by default a "global menu" rather than "main menu"?
> 
>  This is
> extremely confusing, and maybe we should forward this to usability team to
> try convince the developers to make it easier to use.
> 
> 3. In 3.1.1, logging in to a Desktop Session: you may mention that GNOME
> supports "named sessions", described in 3.3.7: you can have different
> sessions saved, and at login time, you can select which of them you
> want to login to.
> 
> 4. In Table 4-1, default panel items, you list "GNOME Help Browser" -
> which will not be there in 2.0. At least, not the current one. Maybe there
> will be a button to launch Help tab of Nautilus?
> 
> 5. In 4.8.2: there is a question regarding the action of right-click menu
> items "Lock Screen now", "blank screen now", etc. My observation: if the
> daemon is running (it when you first create this button), "lock screen
> now" works as expected (locks screen); if you kill the daemon, "Lock
> Screen now" has no effect.
> 
> 6. Section 6.1, Table 6-3: "To minimize the window ... choose Iconify" Of
> course, it is not documenters' fault, but this should be corrected. If we
> decided (and we did!) to use term "minimize", we should try to convince
> the developers to use the same terms in their apps. Did anyone try to get
> in touch with the developers?
> 
> 7. In 6.3.2.3: the screenshot must be updated - it shows gmc windows, and
> gmc has been replaced by Nautilus.
> 
> 8. In Section 7 (Nauitlus): you should at least mention that Nau is also a
> help browser.
> 
> 9. You have a question "how Nautilus recognizes types of files w/o
> extensions"? The answer: Nau (or rather gnome-vfs) first uses what is
> called "file magic"; as far as I can tell, this is a way of identifying
> file type by matching several first lines of a file against a database of
> known
> patterns (it is probably oversimplified; if you need to know more, talk to
> developers). Only if this fails, it looks at the extension. E.g., if you
> have a jpeg image with no extension - or with extension pdf - Nautilus
> will still recognize it as JPEG image. Try it.
> 
> 10. Also in section 7: you should mention that Nautilus also acts as FTP
> client. You can enter URL of the form ftp://.... in Location field, and
> Nautilus will show the files ion the FTP serevr in the same way as your
> local files. It also supports non-anonymous FTP (which is not documented
> but works): if I remember correctly, one should use URLs in the form
> 
> ftp://username:password host name domain
> 
> 11. In 7.6: "you can use the File Types capplet to....
>          ...
>            associate a file type with a MIME type"
>   this got me confused. I always considered the two to be synonymous. Can
> you explain what this means??
> 
> 12. In Table 7-10 (Nautilus preferences), there is a question about
> "executable text files". AFAIK, this group tells what to do with scripts -
> e.g., shell scripts. They can be treated as text file and opened in
> editor, or they can be executed.
> 
> OK, that's it for now - got to run. Will send more later.
> 
> Sasha
> 
> On Tue, 6 Nov 2001 17:36:59 +0000 (GMT)
> "Pat Costello" <Patrick Costello sun com> wrote:
> 
> > All,
> >
> > We are making available a draft of our GNOME User Guide for review by
> > the GNOME community. You can download the pdf file of the book from the
> > following location:
> >
> > /cvs/gnome/ gnome-docu/ gdp/ contrib/ user_guide/GNOMESSUG.pdf
> >
> > There is also an announcement on the following page:
> >
> > http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gdp/
> >
> > As well as being a preview of what we intend to publish, we would also
> > like to
> > invite community members to look at the User Guide in the light of being
> > able to
> > use the material in the community desktop, as online Help for the
> > various
> > components. In addition, we welcome all comments and suggestions about
> > developing the book.
> >
> > Before you start reviewing the User Guide, you should read the attached
> > readme.txt file.
> >
> > Pat
> >
> >
> >
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