Re: Evolution Plugins (Was Re: Rise of the Plugins)

[Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com>]

On Fri, 2007-11-16 at 10:56 +0530, Sankar P wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-11-15 at 21:20 +1100, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> > <quote who="Alexander Larsson">
> > 
> > > This is kinda a backward question. The reason you want to split it out is
> > > of course not because you want to use the mailer without the addressbook,
> > > it is because you want to use the address book without the mailer. 
> > 
> > ... and you can provide a deliciously optimised user experience for both use
> > cases. It's worth looking at the user experience of the OS X communications
> > tools, and possibly even the Windows Vista ones (although they're definitely
> > uglier) to see why this is such a good way to go. It would be *FANTASTIC* to
> > see Evolution become a suite of wonderful, focused applications instead of
> > the Outlook clone it is today (and, sure, designed to be).
> 
> The components of Evolution are loosely ties to the Evolution shell, so
> that you can use any component without other components loaded at all.
> 
> To answer Alexander, if you have at least one account configured, you
> can directly launch Evolution Addressbook without ever having anything
> to do with Mail component. If you launch "Evolution Addressbook" from
> your gnome main menu, it should not ask your IMAP password. If it does,
> it is a bug, please file that.

Well. Its true that the code is separated so that not a lot of
unncesessary stuff is loaded when you start contacts only (and yes, it
didn't ask for the imap password, which is good).

However, the window it gives me looks for all intents and purposes like
the mailer. It has quick buttons to switch to the mailer, it has a
send/receive button on the toolbar. This just doesn't feel like the
ideal UI you would create if you wanted to do an excellent address book.

For instance, the toolbar could totally go away, as can the status bar
and the fast switch buttons. A bunch of generic mailer stuff could be
removed from the menus too. In general the app could be made smaller and
tighter, feeling more like a utility window that you can bring up
quickly when you want someones address, rather that some large
application you start up and navigate around.

Also, the general layout of the address book seems more or less
inherited from the mailer. I think for instance the OSX layout is better
suited to display contacts:

http://www.guidebookgallery.org/pics/gui/applications/office/addressbook/macosx103-1-1.png

Lists of names are easier to scroll vertically, since you then display
more of the text (as text is horizontal) and more names (they stack well
vertically). The preview then goes on the side in order to not steal
screen space from the list. This layout clearly doesn't work well for
the mailer itself, which makes it problematic to share such a window
with the mailer (in a switch-apps-inside-one-window approach like the
current evo). However, if you generally use the addressbook for other
things, in a non-fullscreen mode this seems like a much nicer approach. 

And I don't think it would be a bad idea for the mailer to open such an
addressbook window instead of turning the mailer window into an
addressbook. 

Btw. am I the only one who is totally pissed off when reading a mail and
you need to check e.g. the addressbook or calendar for some info and
this makes the mailer, including the current mail just go away, totally
killing your state. Its certainly *possible* to get the calendar in a
separate window, but thats far harder and requires multiple steps, so
its not what you typically do.