Re: GNOME3 - Opinion

[Brian Cameron <brian cameron oracle com>]

Uros:

Thank you for your feedback.  We love to hear what people think of
GNOME.

> Following issue is not directly related to GNOME3, but just my idea I
> would like to see implemented
> and believe software developers and professional users would find it
> very useful. While I'm not
> 'reinventing the wheel' I still believe it is new idea.

Note that the GNOME accessibility interfaces do provide mechanisms for
controlling and getting information from GUI programs in alternative
ways.  Projects like dogtail[1] uses these interfaces to provide record
and replay experiences.  The dogtail project is not very active today,
but it is an example of trying to provide a script-like interface for 
controlling UI programs:

Your suggestion of providing a shell-like interface is unique, but
these accessibility interfaces are designed to support a wide range of
different alternative interfaces like magnification, on-screen keyboard
(caribou), and text-to-speech (orca) features.  Perhaps they could also
be used by your "command prompt" interface.  If you are interested in
doing this sort of thing, then you may be interested to learn more
about GNOME accessibility features.

Brian

[1] https://fedorahosted.org/dogtail/


> Proposal. I have been using keyboard-oriented computers for almost 20
> years. During this time,
> I believe, keyboards are segment where we saw very little innovation.
> 101-keys US keyboard is a
> standard we could see everywhere with very small differences. Win keys,
> AltGr and dropping
> numerical keyboard are very few modifications of this old standard. I
> believe that this fact is a
> consequence of one very mature well-designed input device. I would say I
> wish I could only
> use a keyboard as my computer input device.
>
> For all this time we have old command prompt text interface as the
> fastest way how software developer
> could "communicate" with computer. We are also living in
> graphic-oriented displays and such
> technology is very useful so we cannot depend on text interface any
> more. However, mouse as an
> input device is not very fast tool. We have to move hands, to
> concentrate to mouse-pointer, etc.
>
> My idea is whether we could develop one "command prompt"-oriented window
> where we could
> communicate with all our applications? I know, you will tell me, about
> xterm, and other similar
> emulators, but this emulator allows us just to use bash,csh and other
> shells, not to communicate
> with other applications.
>
> I propose some application where we could type commands like "\calc\open
> .\myfile" for opening
> file in calc or "\gimp\line x1 y1 x2 y2" for drawing line in gimp, for
> example, and do all things we
> are doing currently with shortcuts or clicking to icons or to menu
> items. I realize that each application
> has to have support for this feature, but for all of us using computers
> daily this way of interaction
> would make mouse and other pointer devices completely useless and all
> communication could be
> done much faster from keyboard only. Text commands are simple, fast, and
> very comprehensive
> way for doing anything and graphic environment could provide us
> picture/video and all other
> tools we don't have in plain-text environment.
>
> As a consequence all windows and applications could be
> menu/icon/dialog-free so we could have
> more space for a real job need to be done when we use them.
>
> And my final thought is related to Google Chromebook. We could see that
> Google is trying to redefine
> keyboard making it simpler and more useful than it is currently. I think
> that such idea is great. Lot
> of "garbage" computer history collected all these years and somebody has
> to "clean" it a little bit.
> Win keys and some of ASCII characters today doesn't have any sense. Ctrl
> and Alt are more than
> enough for giving users more options for typing.
>
> That is all from me, so far. If you like my ideas we could start working
> on it, and I will start proposing
> more things, if you don't I will be passive observer and in future
> contributor to other well-established
> GNOME projects.
>
> Uros Nedic, MSc
> Belgrade, Serbia
>
>
>
>
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