Re: Control Center Behavior

[Mark Finlay <sisob eircom net>]

> Right off the cuff I should preface this by saying that I don't think
> the active forum users on gnomedesktop.org provide an accurate sample
> for the general GNOME user population. Also, the poll naturally
> encourages response from the potentially noisy minority who want change,
> while encouraging non-response from the silent majority who may prefer
> the status quo. Combined with erroneous performance statements (I'm
> guessing the 7x figure includes launching Nautilus) specifically
> positioned to colour the poll, I'm not inclined to trust these results.

Well the discussion started and contiuned as a discussion of usibility -
the speed issues were incidental.

For the record my speed test was done on a fresh boot - and as such were
accurate on my machine. If i do the test twice in a row I get similar
results as you do - but as I say it's not speed that bothers me.

> What makes it better or simpler? Why is it easier to understand?
> Specifically, why is it easier to understand a custom interface rather
> than a standard file browsing interface?
>
> What in particular is confusing and disorienting about the Nautilus
> version for you? 

Well I, along with a lot of the members of the board, have only recently
started using Gnome 2, While almost all the member of this list have
been using it all along. It's like the difference between watching a
child grow up and not seeing a child for a year. You have seen the
gradual progression from 1.4 to 2.X - we haven't, everything is new.
It's very hard for ppl who have seen the progression to forsee the
problems of ppl like ourselves who are new to it.

So my first inclination is to try and get to know the control center. I
find the Desktop preferences menu anoying because I havent got tare-off
menus working and so each time I want to open an applet I have to down
into the sub-menu. And like a lot of gnome users, I like to spend
unhealthy amounts of time "browsing" the cc. I dont know the cc well
enough yet to know what applet i want to open before i go into it.

As I said the menu needs to be tareable and main menu for this
"browsing" to be possible. This is almost more important to me than the
nautilus issue because if this were true i would use neither.

Nautilus IMHO makes it harder to browse because, just like a poorly
designed website, you have to go back to the main page to get from one
sub-section to another. I should be able to get straight from
Accesibility to Advanced or to whatever catagories will be there in the
future. I've been designing websites and GUI for years and to me that is
a serious hiccup.

However I agree with you that the tone of my e-mail was unhelpful - it's
better to offer constructive critism than to just blurt out a load of
opinions and "decisions". 

I hope no-one takes insult at my critisms

> One problem I see with the Nautilus version is that its not immediately
> obvious which items are folders and which are actual preference pages.
> This is a serious problem. Ideally what would happen is that images for
> folders would not replace the folder icon, but would work as emblems. As
> a short term fix we should probably figure out how to disable icons for
> folders when browsing that URI in Nautilus. Folder icons may not be as
> pretty, but they're more useful.

I diagree with that particular idea. I think that the best solution
would be to use the sidebar to hold the folders rather in a similar way
to the shell.

Thanks for the response ;)

MArk

-- 

	 ---------------- [ Mark Finlay ] --------------
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