Re: [Usability]All animations should be disableable

[Gregory Merchan <merchan phys lsu edu>]

On Thu, Oct 17, 2002 at 09:43:22PM +0100, MArk Finlay wrote:
> There has been much flaming about the Metacity minimise animation and
> I'm sure that there will be if the launch feedback in 2.2 isn't
> disablable.
> 
> You don't need to explain to me why preferences are bad or why these
> animations are there in the first place. I'm a stong believer in the
> Gnome to philosophies.
> 
> What I cannot work out is what the negitive effects of having a "disable
> minimse animation" gconf key. How would that option possibly impact the
> "web of preferences" negitively. Turing of an animation has no knock on
> effect AFAIK. 
> 
> So what are the arguements against adding these particualar options? To
> me the upside are:
> 1. Helps ppl running gnome2 on slow hardware
> 2. Allow's advanced users some control without negitively effecting
> "non-technical users"

OS/2 and, iirc, even pre-10 MacOS had window animations. I ran OS/2 on
a 486DX 33MHz machine with 8Mb of RAM.  Slow hardware should not be
a problem.

However, there is a specification problem. There is no way for a window
manager (or app) to know from where animations begin and to where they go.
Animations should provide an illusion of continuity. When you open a file
from a folder view or run an app from a menu, there should be an animation
connecting the file's icon or the menu item and the window which opens.
When a window is minimized, the animation should connect the window and
whatever represents minimized windows. When a window is closed, it should
go back to from where it came.

The only complaint I recall about animation is that it is too slow.
If so, that is a bug and an option to disable animations would be one
of the "Please unbreak this" options.


Cheers,
Greg Merchan