Re: Three Point Zero - Idea Mockups

[Ikke <eikke eikke com>]

> ...
> http://browserbookapp.sourceforge.net/topaz/
> 
> Enjoy,
> Nigel.

Hey,

Great work with your mockups! I would not now how to get something like
that done ;-)

Here are my (very very) humble thoughts on it:

- Your starting points, the "First Class Objects" (as described on
l.g.o) and tagging are great :-)

- I don't think dropping all directory structures is a good idea. What
would you e.g. do with my Projects folder? "Projects" in se (autotooled
etc) are based on structured files and directories, you can't just "tag"
them. There are only some specific directories you could drop and use
tagging instead (like Documents, Images, Music,...).

- In the create menu: if I got both Inkscape and Gimp installed, what
will be started when I choose "Illustration"? Both serve another task, I
know, but there's always one application that's best suited for a task.
Same thing for Abiword/OOo Writer, etc.

- The long running tasks: great idea, but this will need a good
way/standard to talk between processes (CDIS? ;-)). In the end, it won't
be the panel/panel applet that will be leeching a torrent, it's an
application that will do this, even if this application is not visible
to the user.
Next to this, "Playing some playlist" doesn't really fit in here IMHO.
Downloading a file, printing a document,... is a real long running task,
playing some music isn't.

- On the use of the "Windows" key: notice not everyone has got this key
(Mac users I guess, people with a nice old keyboard, or maybe
die-hard-Windows-haters who bought a special keyboard).

- Taking the switch-desktop applet out of the panel will force the user
to use his mouse more, and will take away nice features like dragging a
window from one desktop to another.

- When you write "I followed the '439 messages' link, results are in the
same window" -> this means one application must be able to diplay a lot
of different data formats, which is (IMHO) a bad thing. Woul'nt it be
better to start the user's email client (evo) with a auto-applied search
filter like "from: jeff", so the user sees all jeff's emails the same
way as his normal non-filtered inbox.

- On mouse usage: when the right mouse button defaults to dragging the
window, context-specific popup menu's (as used now) won't be possible
anymore, which wouldn't be nice I think. The current behaviour (alt+left
= drag) works fine and easy. Panning using the middle-mouse button isn't
such a good idea either: not everyone got a 3-button mouse (not me at
least), and pressing 2 mouse buttons together is contra-intuitive.
Something like Acrobat Reader does (under windows at least, havent got
it under linux) would be nicer: when clicking the document on an "empty"
place (e.g. where there's no element in an edited SVG file) and moving
your mouse pans the document.


2 little things to add:
- The "Jeff" contact view is very nice. I might point at Project Soylent
for this, more information here [1] or some old stuff on l.g.o.
- On viewing contacts in a non-email-client-centered way, see the proof
of concept [2] I made some time ago. Maybe it's just useless nonsense
what I made there, not usefull at all, whatever ;-)

It's great to see people working Topaz ideas out (as seen before [3]),
I'm sure when Topaz lands it'll be a real "First class desktop" :-)


Regards,

Ikke
http://www.eikke.com

[1] http://galago.info/wiki/Project_Soylent
[2] http://blog.eikke.com/index.php/ikke/2005/05/15/contactfs_working
[3] http://software.xkopex.com/gnome/gnome3.html