Re: Replacing control center menus

[Jamie McCracken <jamiemcc blueyonder co uk>]

Jon Nettleton wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-12-12 at 17:33 +0000, Thomas Wood wrote:
> > Gustavo J. A. M. Carneiro wrote:
> > > On Ter, 2006-12-12 at 11:51 -0500, Jonathan Blandford wrote:
> > > > On Tue, 2006-12-12 at 15:26 +0100, �ienne Bersac wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > A menu longer that 10 entry is very painful. Often, Gnome properties
> > > > > menu is about 20 entry when you install some additionnal softwares.
> > > > > Gnome is the only desktop which keep using this outdated
> > > > > "control-center". A control center is far more usable and accessible
> > > > > (especially if it provide search).
> > > > This also could mean that we have too many capplets.
> > >   Agreed.
> > >
> > >   But even if we can't get away from a multitude of capplets, there's an
> > > alternative solution: add an extra level of preferences "categories", as
> > > we do for the applications menu.
> > Four clicks to get to a preference window? Sounds a bit excessive.
> >
> > We had the discussion about the number of capplets already on the 
> > control center list. It was generally agreed that it would be nice to 
> > merge some of them, but (as far as I know) all except one of the 
> > suggestions had problems. And after that, the biggest issue is finding 
> > some developers with enough time to actually do the work.
> >
> > I do think using a shell window is easier than a menu, especially when 
> > it has search and filter features. It is also likely to be more familiar 
> > to users coming from other desktops.
> But what is being used for the search functionality?  Beagle? Time to go
> buy a super-computer so I can change the sensitivity of my mouse :-)  I
> know that search/tag/filtering is the hot topic, but how is that better
> here?  

Please dont dismiss this important technology because one implementation 
is currently sub-optimal for your needs

You dont need a super computer or tons of ram or Mono/Java (or any other 
VM) to run search/tag/filtering - just use a sensible search engine such 
as tracker which is written in C and designed for running on low end 
machines (every other competing OS search system I know of is written in 
a native language as well).

Of course any search solution used here should be open ended but I 
expect the default should be "no search" until at least  tracker gets 
into GNOME :)

(Tracker is still under proposal for Gnome 2.18)


--
Mr Jamie McCracken
http://jamiemcc.livejournal.com/