Re: Proposal: gnome-main-menu for inclusion in GNOME 2.18

[Martin Ejdestig <marejde gmail com>]

On Fri, 2006-10-20 at 14:56 -0400, Rodney Dawes wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-10-20 at 20:25 +0200, Martin Ejdestig wrote:
> > On Fri, 2006-10-20 at 13:11 -0400, Rodney Dawes wrote:
> > > The menu thing looks like the Mac menu, but doesn't
> > > behave anything like the real thing does on Mac OS.
> > 
> > And the slab thing looks like Windows' start menu but doesn't behave
> > anything like the "real thing" on Windows. Or did I miss something? :)
> 
> It matches the behavior more closely than the menu bar applet does.
> 
> > (FWIW, I don't think it matters much how much something might or might
> > not look like something else on some other system...)
> 
> It depends on where the difference is. The two main types of
> differentiation here are:
> 
> 1) It's different enough to be better.
> 
> 2) It's just different enough to be confusing.

My point was that I don't know how relevant it is to match behavior.
If you show users something much better but different they won't
hesitate to switch if it doesn't involve too much work. A completely
different design than what they are used to will require more work, but
if it's worth it they won't complain.

(Blindly copying some design implemented in some proprietary system and
missing out on a lot of details in the original is something FOSS
projects do far too often IMHO...)

> The slab falls into category 1, while the menu bar falls into category 2
> here. The default panel layout in GNOME looks like some inane mix of Mac
> OS and Windows, and has been a point of confusion for many people
> switching over. Power user Martin Eidestig might be used to using that
> layout, and may have been for some time,

(Note that I'm not arguing for keeping the current default layout...)

>  but John Q. Customer who has
> been using Windows his whole life, won't be. The significance of how
> much it is like, or unlike, a similar specific interface on Windows or
> Mac OS, is that we need to define our target audience. Without a target,
> we can't reasonably say what is truly best for the desktop.

You're absolutely right!

(Though, when arguing for slab you seem set on the target audience being
ex Windows users... :) Nothing wrong with that. Many new GNOME users
will most likely come from the Windows world... just saying...) 

Didn't Havoc send out a GNOME Personas mail a couple of years ago? ;)

(Oh, and I haven't used slab. I've just seen screenshots and
screencasts. For all I know it might be the best thing since sliced
bread.)


Martin
-- 
http://coiley.zapto.org/~martin