Re: Windowmanager in session.wm

[Jan Gentsch <gentsch ifm uni-hamburg de>]

Tom Tromey wrote:
> 
> >>>>> "Jan" == Jan Gentsch <gentsch@ifm.uni-hamburg.de> writes:
> 
> Jan> If you start up gnome for the first time you should be prompted
> Jan> first thing to choose a windowmanager from the ones available on
> Jan> your particular system.
> 
> I disagree.  Most truly new users would have no idea how to make this
> choice.  For instance, if my mom started using Gnome, such a dialog
> would prompt her to phone me up and ask me what to do -- not exactly
> user friendly behavior.
> 
> I think it would be better for gnome-session to have an internal list
> of window managers, and then just pick the first one it finds.  More
> experienced/clueful users will know how to change window managers.
> Less experienced users probably won't care.
> 
> Tom

That is an arguable point. Much of these kind of problems could be
avoided if we finally had a working and complete help system. A good
explanation along with a hint where to change the setting again
afterwards should do the trick.
Maybe its time to launch a help system iniative.
If you mum calls you despite an intelligent help text (which is not an
uncommon thing), she would propably have called you in the first place.
(Think about starting Netscape: one license agreement and three error(!)
messages on a first start).
In my opinion most people would be saved the hassle of switching
windowmanagers afterwards (and deleting their config-dirs) if such a
dialog would be present. New users should be able to understand what is
going on given a proper help text is present. That would also imply that
they are introduced to the concept of a seperate windowmanager, which is
an important one (in particular in gnome´s present state).

Jan