RE: Proposal for default panel layout w/ some modifications to thepanel

[James Ramsey <jjramsey_6x9eq42 yahoo com>]

--- Gerry Chu <gerry-list gerrychu com> wrote:
> And now...for my take on user levels.
> 
> The way Nautilus implements user levels--user levels
> for
> configuration--doesn't make much sense.
> 
> -----
> Does the beginner want to change ANY configuration
> options?

Realistically, a beginner may want to change whether
files are presented as icons or as a list by default,
or maybe the appearance.

>----------------------------------------------------------
> The idea of using user levels is to make things
> easier for the beginner,
> while allowing the advanced user free reign. Does
> limiting/removing
> configuration levels make the PROGRAM ITSELF any
> easier?

If the program has a lot of configurable options, then
having a configuration level that screens some of the
options out may make it easier for beginners who would
otherwise be confused by some of the options.

One could argue that user levels simply masks the
underlying problem of the program being more complex
than necessary, and that the real solution would be to

simplify the UI of the program so that it was more
focused and straightforward. 

Having seen Nautilus in action, I could argue it both
ways; I could either say that Nautilus uses user
levels, yet is a straighforward application
nonetheless, or that what makes Nautilus a
straightforward application is consistent across user
levels, and thus the user levels don't help much.
Personally, I'd argue for the latter, but that's an
issue on which I don't want to start a flame war.

> And you could make user levels for the program
> itself like Copland tried to
> do...then you'd end up designing 3 UIs for each
> level.

To be fair, this isn't how UI levels are implemented
in Nautilus. All changing the user level does is
change the number of options that the user can see and
change. The UI itself doesn't change until the user
configures an option.

> People are experts at different parts of a program
> --------------------------------------------------
> Especially as programs get more complex, isn't it
> likely that people will be
> experts at some aspects of the program, and total
> beginners at others?
> Suppose the program is Microsoft Word. It's been
> said that people only use
> 10% of the features of the program, but it's a
> different 10% for everyone.

It depends on the range of tasks that tend to get done
by the program. A CAD program like Pro/Engineer has
several different roles: parts modelling, parts
assembly, making drawings from the parts, using
modules like Pro/Mechanica to do stress analyses, etc.
It is quite likely that users will master some of
these roles more completely than others. On the other
hand, a program like MS Word is really used for one
role: preparing documents. Preparing most documents in
MS Word will require only 10% of MS Word's
functionality, but it will be the same 10% each time.

> Is the portion of the program used dictated by
> whether you're a beginner,
> intermediate, or advanced user, or by the features
> you need to use to get
> the job done?

I'd say the portion of the program used is dictated by
the features needed to get the job done. However,
there is a difference between a user application, and
a program that is part of the desktop. Just because
user levels don't map well to regular applications
doesn't mean that they will map horribly badly to
desktop programs.

> Unified, consistent, UI design. And panels.
> -------------------------------------------
> I really think it is possible to design one UI that
> everyone will be happy
> with.
>
> This, of course, does not mean as much free reign as
> we have today with
> panels...every different panel configuration that
> people have is really a
> different UI. 

This is half-true, IMHO. If the GNOME UI had always
been designed to have a firm policy, I don't think any
of its current users would be complaining about it not
having enough configurability. However, GNOME's
interface is extremely malleable, and most of the
current GNOME users like it that way and want to keep
it that way, and like it or not, this must be taken
into account. IMHO, while I think that user levels
detract from the simplicity of a UI, they may be the
best way to compromise between the current GNOME
user's want for a highly configurable interface, and a
new user's need for an interface that is simple and
hard to mess up.

> Reconfiguring panels is only _one_ way
> advanced users are
> satisfied with their UI, not the only way.

I agree in theory. If I were the king of the forest, I
would redesign the GNOME interface so that it
consisted of Nautilus and a full-featured window
manager called GaryGNUWM, with the rest of GNOME being
libraries, daemons, and other bits of an app
framework, much as the GNUstep interface, from what I
can tell, is pretty much just Window Maker and the
GWorkspace file manager, with the rest of GNUstep
being just libraries and application framework.
Advanced users could change the interface dramatically
simply by changing window managers, which would be
simpler than it is now since the window manager would
only have to deal with Nautilus and not things like
pagers and panels. The window manager *would* be the
desktop. GNOME would be as configurable as the number
of window managers that could deal intelligently with
Nautilus. GaryGNUWM would of course be the official
GNOME WM.

/*
Hint: If someone actually takes the above suggestion
seriously (and I halfway wish that someone would),
don't use the name GaryGNUWM unless you want whoever
owns the rights to the "Great Space Coaster" to sue
you. TrollWM, deeteeWM, or IM-up2late-WM are better
choices .
*/

Of course, I'm not even close to king of the forest,
so user levels are probably the best compromise.



=====


----I am a fool for Christ. Mostly I am a fool.----


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