Re: Draining the Swamp: A Technical User's Experience

[Richard Stallman <rms gnu org>]

    Here you seem to argue for providing convenient graphical preferences
    for anything a user may wish to configure. Elsewhere you have stated
    that you would like GNOME to strive to have as good a user interface
    as the Macintosh. Unfortunately, those two goals are in conflict.

Practically speaking, there is not much conflict between these goals.
Adding additional features to the GNOME configuration tool will not
make GNOME as a whole much harder to use.

    Methods 1 and 2 above do not add any additional freedom - they merely
    add convenience for some users. At the same time, they take away
    convenience from other users, by making it harder for them to find the
    preferences they truly care about. User testing under controlled
    conditions bears this out.

This is a very surprising statement; could you tell us precisely
what was tested in those studies, so we can see precisely what
conclusions we can draw?

    On the other hand, having the titlebar on the bottom of
    the window rather than on top is something that very few people want
    *and* which has no practical utility. So this preference is not
    exposed in the UI, even though the underlying system makes it
    technically possible.

I agree with that particular decision.  I'm not saying that GNOME
should provide a GUI for every conceivable kind of customization--only
for the ones that users often want to do.

It has a ways to go to reach that point.  In the GNOME configuration
tool in GNOME 1.4, I looked for a way to customize the keyboard
mapping (what you can do with xmodmap).  That is a very common thing
for users to want to change; I've even seen an X-based GUI for the
job.  But I could not find it in GNOME configuration.
Peripherals->Keyboard seemed like the natural place, but it doesn't do
that job.  I think it ought to.

Configuring the ethernet connection and ppp are additional very
important configuration features that GNOME should offer.  It could
ask for the root password before letting you change the settings.
There should also be a way to bring net connections up and down.

It might be useful to look at a Macintosh and see which kinds
of customizations it provides a GUI for.  That would make a good
task list for GNOME customization features.