Gnome UI feedback and feature requests.

[Miles Lane <miles amazon com>]

Hi,

I am concerned that the panel application provides a lot of functionality
with little or no help or UI consistency to guide the novice user.
For example, last night my wife was playing same-gnome, somehow she
	1) managed to kill the game when she thought she was closing the
		score dialog.
	2) managed to exit X Windows trying to restart same-gnome.
Don't ask me how she did these things.  She was a little fuzzy on the
details.  

What her experience indicates to me is that while the panel is cool
because a lot of functionality is packed into a small area, the fact
that there isn't some universally available context-sensitive HELP
system and that the applets don't have titles underneath them to 
indicate the applet function (for example, the Log Out button!)
will cause many novice users grief (now how do I reenable the 
confirmation prompt for the Log Out button, anyhow?).  It seems to
me that all confirmation prompt toggling for panel applets should
be settable through the UI.  I shouldn't have to tweak config files
by hand.

I understand that titles would take up too my panel real estate,
but the problem could be solved by having title tooltips pop up when
the mouse cursor moves over a panel applet.  To really make things 
simple for novice Gnomers, it would be great to have the tooltips
change to indicate the function of various applet UI elements.
For example, with the CD Player applet, the tooltips could show:

	Track
	Stop
	Play/Pause
	Eject
	Previous Track
	Next Track

It could even be implemented in such a way that when no music
CD was in the drive, the tooltip would simply display "CD Player"
and when music CD was inserted in the drive the functional
indicator tooltips would be enabled.

I haven't seen much discussion of Gnome Panel default setting here.
I find the tiles shown under the Panel buttons fairly annoying.
I always disable them and set some medium-brightness color as my
Panel background color.  I find this much cleaner looking and
think having tiles disabled is a better default.

Another minor UI peeve is that I want better control panel driven
customization of the Gnome UI.  For example, I really like the 
point and click plus dropdown listbox method Win95 provides for
changing UI colors, sizes, positioning and fonts.  I figure that 
the Panel is just another form of application window.  I'd like 
to change all my window display characteristics in one place.

Thanks,
	Miles