Re: [Nautilus-list] Re: URLs fixed, some Eazel removed

[Christian Meyer <chrisime uni de>]

Havoc Pennington wrote:

> "Christian Meyer" <chrisime uni de> writes:
>
> > Maybe it can be combined with XIMIANs/GNOMEs Doorman. But it should be
> > extended a little bit. I recently installed KDE 2.2 on my laptop. They have
> > about the same thing called KPersonalizer. You can adjust KDE for your
> > needs/for your CPU (if it can't handle all that eye-candy stuff). Thoughts?

Hi, sorry for the late answer...


> I really don't like the doorman or the kpersonalizer; I don't think
> preferences are that interesting, that they should be in your face
> before you even use the desktop. The only reason people care about
> prefs so much is that customization is pretty much the main exciting
> feature of the UNIX desktops right now, and the two desktop projects
> are so competitive they are all getting in your face and saying "look
> at me!  look at my features!"
>
> Certainly a wizard before you even use the desktop is a crazy place to
> put prefs, no one has any basis to make the decisions they're given at
> that point...


People who don't like it can simply skip the dialog. Poweruser can 
configure some bits at least.


> We should have good defaults, if people are adventurous and don't like
> the defaults they can dig out the prefs. But there's no reason anyone
> should have to use the prefs. And people should be encouraged to use
> the defaults, with nice standard keybindings and behavior, so that
> their desktop matches the documentation. Weird nonstandard
> look-and-feel is something only advanced users are equipped to cope
> with.


See my note...


> Remember that usually people use the desktop after purchasing an
> operating system or perhaps after arriving at a new job. Most people
> when launching the desktop have not just downloaded KNOME Whiz-Bang
> 3.3 found on Freshmeat. At least, if we're successful that is/will be
> true.
>
> So then they boot up and want to configure a web server or write a
> paper or play a specific game, i.e. do useful work or play. They don't
> boot up and want to get started deciding which insanely unusable eye
> candy will be enabled. ;-) They have the computer for applications,
> not for the desktop. They don't know what GNOME or KDE are.


I have no objection to that. As I said, these users can skip the dialog 
and start configuring their machine.


> MHO of course.
>
> Anyhow, I don't think we should have a first-login wizard unless we
> have questions that really need asking that users really have the
> information to answer.


Hmmm...

Regards,
Christian Meyer