Re: [Usability] New way of accessing software (WAS: Re: Big Panel menus (32x32))

[Roberto Rosselli Del Turco <rosselli ling unipi it>]

Eugenia Loli-Queru wrote:

[...]

> In the three mockups below (please note that these mockups are just mockups
> to show the logic, don't pay attention to icons, fonts, organization,
> KDE-based etc, I did those many months ago),  you will find a new concept of
> organizing menus and work evenly. Here is the logic behind it:
>
> When people are using computers, they always use them in one of these three
> fashions:
> 1. Configure the environment. (just an old mockup:
> http://www.osnews.com/img/3721/1.png)
> 2. Launch applications. (work in progress:
> http://www.osnews.com/img/3721/2.png and
> http://www.osnews.com/img/3721/3.png)
> 3. Load and process files. (files should have the same window launcher as
> the apps above, but with options regarding files instead of apps, depending
> on the MIME type)

[...]

> I know that these mockups are not shown clear what I mean, sorry for this.
> Please reply if you have questions. I made these mockups some time ago and
> some things have actually changed since then. It is not a fool proof
> concept, as I said, I have changed my opinion on some of the things shown
> there with time, it was still work in progress when I stopped thinking too
> hard about the whole thing, so please be nice. :)

I just had a brief look after reading your interesting mail, so this 
isn't exactly a well argumented review :) Many ideas, lots of stuff to 
consider. At a first glance I'd say that the Launch applications menus 
are a little too XPish and complicated for my tastes (just a little, 
mind you).

But the interesting thing is that if we want to move from the 
traditional, hyerarchical menus we already have a working testbed for 
this: Marco's new bookmarks system in Epiphany. After reading Eugenia's 
mail I was struck by the similarities and, if that's the way to go, it 
would be really nice to have the same/near identical system for the 
desktop and the web browser.

Hope the people meeting at Guadec will ponder on this ...

Ciao

--
Roberto Rosselli Del Turco      e-mail:	rosselli at cisi.unito.it
Dipartimento di Scienze			rosselli at ling.unipi.it
del Linguaggio			Then spoke the thunder	DA
Universita' di Torino		Datta: what have we given?  (TSE)

  Hige sceal the heardra,     heorte the cenre,
  mod sceal the mare,       the ure maegen litlath.  (Maldon 312-3)