Re: Launching an application requires too many mouse clicks in Gnome 3

["Jasper St. Pierre" <jstpierre mecheye net>]

On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 2:31 AM, Xavier Cho <fender_rules yahoo co kr> wrote:
> Thanks for the tip. Though, I already know how to use dash.
>
> I guess dash/dock is mainly for the applications which used most often,
> and categorised application menu is for those applications which is only
> occasionally accessed. And even I already have 15 icons on my dock, I
> still find myself opening program menu to search for seldom used
> applications from time to time.
>
> On a side note, I really like to see kind of a 'switchable' dock so I
> could change set of applications on it according to task currently I'm
> on. For example, when I do some music related work, I often use jackd
> related applications like ardour, hydrogen, lv2rack and etc. Though
> other times, I don't want those icons to clutter my dock, as I rather
> want to have more general set of applications at hand, like a web
> browser and a terminal, and so on.

Some people have suggested workspace presets. The idea is that you
have a "Music Production" preset on the dash which contains all those
applications, and clicking it would launch all those applications in a
new workspace. It's not going to happen for 3.2, unfortunately.

> 2011-09-04 (일), 02:10 -0400, Jasper St. Pierre:
>> You can pin apps to the dash by dragging them there, or right-click on
>> its icon in the dash.
>>
>> On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 1:43 AM, Xavier Cho <fender_rules yahoo co kr> wrote:
>> > I've been using Gnome 3 for some months, and overall I think it's definitely
>> > a step in the right direction. However, as a long time Gnome 1&2 user, I
>> > find it lacking in some aspects in terms of usability and features.
>> > Most of all, I think Gnome 3 requires too much user interaction when
>> > navigating in the program menu. In the days of global application menu, when
>> > you need to launch an application all you need to do was 1) click on the
>> > panel menu icon, 2) and navigate by hovering your mouse over the categories,
>> > 3) then click on the application. All it needed was 2 clicks and minimal
>> > mouse movement.
>> > However in Gnome 3, you need first 1) move your mouse to the upper left
>> > corner of the screen, 2) and click on the programs menu, 3) wait couple of
>> > seconds (especially when you click it for the first time), 4) move your
>> > mouse to the opposite end of the screen to click through the application
>> > categories, 5) and again move your mouse pointer to where the application
>> > is, 6) and finally click on the icon to launch it.
>> > In summary, now it requires 3 + number of categories clicks and much more
>> > mouse traversal to lauch an application, which I feel a setback in terms of
>> > user experience compared to Gnome 1&2.
>> > I believe the situation would be much better if we could make the categories
>> > traversable by mouse hover instead of clicks, and move the category menu to
>> > the left side to make it close to the hot spot on the upper left corner of
>> > the screen. And it'd reduce the unnecessary delay if it displays selected
>> > few favorite, or most often used applications instead of showing all of them
>> > when you click on the program menu. I guess even providing an alternative
>> > hot spot, say lower left corner of the screen to access the program menu
>> > directly would make it on par with Gnome 2 in terms of mouse clicks needed
>> > for an application launch.
>> > I suppose the direction Gnome 3 is moving toward is providing a simple,
>> > unified desktop environment for variety of devices, including tablets and
>> > even smart phones. However, I believe simplicity in software doesn't always
>> > lies in 'eliminating' features, but usually in intuitive design and 'hiding'
>> > advanced features.
>> > Suppose, there's some basic tasks which most of the users performs often -
>> > like launching an application from program menu - consists roughly 30% of
>> > all desktop features. And there's features which more advanced users need or
>> > which are not used frequently, like customizing desktop fonts, would
>> > consists another 30% of the features. And finally there's remaining 40% of
>> > the features which would rarely be accessed or by expert users or
>> > developers.
>> > Then you need to make those basic 30% of features readily accessible - no
>> > keyboard short cuts, no redundant mouse clicks) in a most intuitive and
>> > simple way. And you can still expose the advanced 30% of features accessible
>> > from GUI, but hidden from casual users, preferably by providing 'advanced'
>> > button like many applications do.
>> > For the remaining expert features, I guess executing terminal commands or
>> > changing gconf values to access them shouldn't be much problem.
>> > So, I'd like to suggest we should collect and priotize all the planned or
>> > implemented features in Gnome 3 according to a criteria similar to the above
>> > mentioned, then re-evaluate their accessibility and usability according to
>> > their nature. So if there's some basic tasks like accessing an application
>> > menu requiring too much mouse interaction, or some non expert features like
>> > chaging desktop fonts missing from the control panel, we could easily detect
>> > such problem and fix it in a consistent way if there's such a design
>> > principle understood and agreed upon among the most developers and users.
>> > I guess Gnome desktop has come a long way, and now it's not uncommon to see
>> > non tech-savy people use it as their primary work environment. So, it's all
>> > about user experience and usability which really matters and would put Gnome
>> > ahead of other competitors.
>> >
>> > Xavier Cho
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > desktop-devel-list mailing list
>> > desktop-devel-list gnome org
>> > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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-- 
  Jasper