Re: To answer your question about the upcoming Style-Guide...

[Tom Vogt <tom lemuria org>]

Dan Kaminsky <effugas@best.com> wrote:
> >how much real-estate do I waste by putting, e.g., four menus/folders on the
> >panel instead of one? I honestly think I waste ZERO screen, because the
> >space they use up is taken by the panel anyways.
> 
> There are better things to place in the gnome bar.  <cackles>

maybe, but I'd say everyone should have the ability to decide that for
himself, don't you?

and that requires that he or she first of all KNOWS that it's possible. I'll
say that again: I've done the tests and they show that with a single menu as
the default people won't even TRY to create anything else.


> >for whom? for everyone? I doubt that. if I use my machine for pagemaker 70%
> >of the time, I would like to start it with a SINGLE click. but I would not
> >want the civ2 scenario editor waste space on the panel. other people could
> >want it the other way around.
> >they should not only be able to have it whatever way they want, they also
> >have to KNOW that it's possible.
> 
> Nice little thing about documentation not being read.

true, but it's a fact that people DON'T read docs. they look into the online
help when they're lost. but in this case, they won't get lost, they'll
simply miss 90% of the functionality without noticing.


> >> app category rather than splitting the gnomeprint up.
> >no, sorry. I don't see that, it's not evident. it's again a
> >single-point-of-reference philosophy. take a look into "real life". there
> is
> >no equivalent to this anywhere. it's not in the experience of the people.
> 
> Want to go to the store?  Go downtown.
or to the shop around the corner, or the one across town or mail-order,
internet...

> Want to go to the office?  Go downtown.
by car, bike, train - whatever you like.

> Want to go get some dinner?  Go downtown.
or across town, call-a-pizza, ...


there really aren't many real-life cases where you have exactly one way that
you cannot change to do a thing. maybe there really are, but they aren't
common enough to build a gui around this principle.



> >> or to bring up all apps of a given category.
> >nothing stops us from allowing dynamic icons to start apps or open folders,
> >does it? cde has a few examples of this (clicking on the clock/calender
> >opens the calender app. now THAT is intuitive, isn't it?).
> 
> In general we don't have situations like this.

no, but the point was that dynamic information and folders aren't exclusive.



-- 
The universe does not have laws -- it has habits, and habits can be broken.