Warning about target audience

["Berin Loritsch" <BERIN LORITSCH cpmx saic com>]

Be careful not to push too much on the user.  Remember that if we are targeting ex-Mac/Winblows/Be/OS2 users, they are used to only being able to change a few parameters.  We in the *nix world are used to full extensibility and configuration.  I have seen alot of disussion about key-bindings and menus and such end in an attitude of, "Well we can't agree, so let's let the user decide."  The inherent danger in that is Gnome becomes too hard to set up and use.  MacOS users can't customize anything without a hack from someone who knows what they are doing.  Microsloth Slow-ware users don't even have that option and are forced to be at the mercy of the whim of the app developer.  Be users are somewhere in the middle and progressing toward a more configureable OS (though don't look to change more than the color of the window borders yet).

I have also seen another trend which I think is good: configurability with standard defaults.  I think that we should use this route.  On install, let the user choose how he wants his system to act most like: Windows (no more cute names expressing my opinions on this OS ;p), MacOS, or Newbie (if someone is new to computing, we can teach them the correct Gnome way of doing things).

In conclusion, I would like to remind everyone that we shouldn't push too much on the user to decide how he wants his system to act.  We should provide some sane defaults.  This will simplify app writing as well as the casual user's experience.  If the casual user wants to learn how to be a power user, that configurability is still there.

Also one last note: on the key-binding issue--the settings panel needs to be able to detect any conflicts that the user may accidently create.  If it checks before closing, you don't get the anoying problem of having to change a binding to a bogus value while you hunt down where the conflict lives.