Re: Menubar (and Empty Default Desktop) Proposals for GNOME 2.10

[aigiskos <aigiskos yahoo com>]

Conceptually, the three item list(Applications,
Places, Action) is actually rather nice, even if the
terminology is not perfect.

In essence, we're talking about 3 different ways to
interact with your computer (and there can be
redudancies between the three):

1) Tool driven: find the tool that will help you do
what you want to  do. [Applications]  Advanced users
will probably tend to think this way.  You know the
tool you want to use, and here is where you can get
it.  We should have a links to a search program and
help program in this menu somewhere.

2) Spatially-oriented: go to the place where your
stuff resides [Places]. This menu could look like
      Home
      Computer [== root + desktop + media + network]
      ---------
      Floppy
      [other expandable media inserted here]
      ---------
      Network =>
      The Web
      ---------
      Recent Places =>
      Favorite Places =>
      ---------
      Find a Place

If you know where you want to go to find a particular
application or document or just to surf around, this
is the menu for you.

3) Verb-driven: you know what you want to do; you just
don't know what application will do it or what place
to go to find the right tool. [Actions]  This menu
could look like:
     Surf the Internet
     Check E-Mail
     Listen to Music
     Watch a Movie
     ----------------
     Draft a Document
     Create a Spreadsheet
     Edit Images
     ... [this middle section would be difficult to
manage]
     ----------------
      Find Help
      Change Desktop Settings
      Change Administrative Setting [this would be
greyed out if you don't have administrative
privileges]
      ---------------
      Log out/Reboot/Shutdown

I guess the three menus could be thought of as 3
different ways of searching the computer to do what
you want it to do, and the menu items are the
tools/places/actions we think are most common and
should be most readily accessible.

~Andrew
     







--- Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org> wrote:

> <quote who="Bryan Clark">
> 
> > System seems to be very technical term, were as
> Desktop is softer, more
> > widely used term to describe the system or the
> pseudo root file system (a
> > la ms desktop); essentially Desktop is a grab bag
> term that definitely
> > does better than Actions and is probably less
> scary than System.
> 
> Oh, but dude, 'Desktop' is even worse than
> 'Computer'. If we went with the
> "Applications  Places  Something" menu layout,
> here's what would be in the
> 'Something' menu (keep in mind this is
> current-Ubuntu-layout inspired):
> 
>   Desktop Preferences >
>   System Configuration >
>   ---
>   About GNOME...
>   Help                <- these three are
> wishy-washy, but I'd like to move
>   Take Screenshot...     help and "about
> gnome/distro" to here
>   ---
>   Lock Screen
>   Log Out
> 
> Pat will totally steal our socks if we abuse the
> term 'Desktop' again, and
> none of this really says 'Desktop' any more than
> 'Computer' or 'System'. (I
> fully agree that 'System' sucks.)
> 
> Throwing another random option for the menu layout:
> 
>   [Foot]  Applications  Places
> 
> Which is very Mac. Some will say that the logo isn't
> discoverable and/or
> provides no affordance for the items within, but...
> These are top level
> items. Anyone with half a brain will clicky-clicky
> and learn what's going
> on. The learnability is not bad.
> 
> (Note that I think a lot of this is rearranging deck
> chairs on the Titanic,
> because at some stage we're going to have to
> seriously think about the
> panel, applets, launchers, etc... But in the mean
> time, we can make things
> incrementally better.)
> 
> - Jeff
> 
> -- 
> linux.conf.au 2005: Canberra, Australia             
>   http://linux.conf.au/
>  
>     "MySQL supporters are like people who believe
> that the moon landings
>     were a hoax. No matter what contrary information
> they're confronted
>          with, they still consider MySQL to be the
> best." - ttfkam
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>
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> 


=====
~~~~~~~~~
dissertus scribendo latine videri volo.


		
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