Re: Comments, suggestions, "issues" re: Gnome, GMC, E, E-Term, etc (long)

[Michael ROGERS <M Rogers cs ucl ac uk>]

>Now, I've been doing some general usability testing while attemping to do
>something constructive (and not revising for exams in the process :). I
>have come up with a number of issues I'd like to see resolved.
>
>My system is a RedHat 6.0 (yes, I am brave and yes, it does need a fair
>amount of tweaking else all hell breaks loose), Gnome (latest tarballs)
>and Enlightenment (DR15.5 tarball), E-Term 0.8.9 tarball, GMC 4.5.31. I
>have the panel across the bottom of the screen.

I'm not really qualified to answer most of your queries, but I'll respond to
those I can.

>OK, let's see how much I remember:
>
>1. In Enlightenment, you can create a directory (or symlink) called
>~/.enlightenment/backgrounds containing all the backgrounds you want
>possible on your desktop. When you access them (root menu -> desktop ->
>backgrounds) a menu containing thumbnails appear. I have two things to say
>about this:
>
>   o  if you have a large number of backgrounds, the menu's width shoots
>      across the screen and you have to tentitively 'rub' the mouse
>      pointer against the rhs of the menu to move the menu across the
>      screen leftwards and access the next pictures. This is very
>      cumbersome. Could we have scrollbars for this job at all?
>
>   o  would it be possible to have a configurable option to switch between
>      filenames and thumbnails for the display?

This is an Enlightenment issue, not a Gnome one.

>2. When a window opens, it observes clearance of the panel correctly.
>However, when a dialogue (e.g. yes, no) opens, it very often opens with
>half the window below the panel. The effect is to have to drag the
>dialogue
>up to see the buttons. Very annoying.

See 1.

>3. When a window opens, it quite often can overlap onto another screen,
>again very annoying.

I would recommend using multiple desktops of 1x1 physical screens each. That
way you have the advantages of multiple workspaces, but not the problems
caused by having workspaces larger than the physical screen (such as
applications thinking the screen is bigger than it is). You can change this 
with e-conf. See 1.

>4. If (taking the obvious example) Netscape dies, using kill -9 removes
>the program, but the gnome-pager's display corrupts, often leaving half
>the entry left and messing up the placement of applets to the right ot it.

Can't help you here - I don't use the pager. E has known problems with the
pager.

>5. In GMC, could the toolbar be configured as in Windows Explorer such
>that the text underneath can be switched off, and thumbnails of the icons
>used? This, in conjunction with the Location toolbar being placed on the
>same line as the main Toolbar, could lead to greater screenspace. Also in
>GMC, could we have a small amount of padding for the information bar at
>the bottom, else the far-left character is flush with the lhs of the
>window.

Can't help you here either. I think you can select small icons, though.

>5. The Contol Center MIME types caplet isn't very configurable. You cannot
>add or remove types, or alter the file extensions. This makes configuring
>the actions of .shtml files impossible without a text editor.

I think the ability to add and remove MIME types is in CVS. There was a
thread on this issue about a month ago.

>6. The Control Center Gnome-Edit capplet does not permit the adding and
>removing of applications. Currently, it's stuck on 'gEdit' which of course
>is wrong, it should read 'gedit' (note case). This causes the gnome-edit
>configuration option to be useless if you want to use gEdit (or gedit as
>the executable file is).

I have this problem - I keep switching to "Jed", and it switches back to
"Emacs".

>7. For the Shut Down or Reboot menu entry, rather than saying "must be
>root", could we have a dialogue asking for the root password?
>
>8. The editing of global-options is extreemly annoying for those who
>remain in X as a normal user. Could we have a Control Center "Root access"
>feature so that menus can be edited, selected users can perform selected
>functions (like menu editing, Shut Down/Reboot, etc.)?

I remember a thread recently about using a program called "sudo" to allow
programs to securely ask for and authenticate the root password. It might be
worth searching the archives. It was in connection with GnoRPM, but as you
point out, many programs could use this functionality.

>9. I note that my Enlightenment Root Menu does not have a GUI
>configuration module. Can this be added? I heard in IRC that the menus.cfg
>file should be edited, but the only one that exists is in
>/usr/local/enlightenment/config/ and this does not match that of my root
>menu (I have not altered either).

See 1.

>10. Could E-Term be made so that is uses true-transparancy with options
>just to show the background wallpaper or include the display of windows
>between in and the background? Surely if you are merely overlaying the
>term's display over X, then the memory being used by the wallpaper in the
>term currently is no longer used and the term is faster?

I'm interested in the idea of truly transparent terminals, but there are
some fairly hefty problems with implementing them. Basically you have to
hide the term window, take a screenshot of the area underneath, draw this
onto the term window, and unhide it, all without causing visible flicker.
Repeat 10 times per second to take account of the fact that the windows
underneath your terminal may have been redrawn, unmapped, moved, etc.

>11. The Help button on Control Center Startup Programs does nothing.

Many of the help buttons do nothing, because no-one has written the relevant
documentation yet. You are likely to be asked to volunteer if you bring this
up on the list.  :)

>12. Just what *does* the long bar across the top of the Enlightenment
>screen do???

I have no idea. It's called the dragbar, and you can switch it off in
e-conf. See 1.

>13. In GMC, if you're in your home directory, and want to create a symlink
>to, say, /usr/local/apache/htdocs/myweb, you have to go into the target
>directory first. Can this be changed so that right-clicking the gmc
>display brings up a "New ->" menu that, when opened, displays a list of
>MIME types for file/document creation as in Windows Explorer? This would
>also allow for Unix-only actions such as symlink creation and so forth.

A dialog box might be better, brought up by selecting "New File". That way
the menu items are always in the same place (which helps you use the menu
more quickly).

>14. In Enlightenment's Theme capplet, there is no "Add new theme" button.
>There is only a list of currently-installed themes. I'm sure before I
>upgraded to RH6 (using the sane E-Conf tarball) that such a button
>existed.

See 1.

>15. On a similar topic to 14., could we have a "Remove..." button for both
>E and Gnome/GTK themes? This would open a new window to remove the
>selected theme(s) from the list, or delete them; if the latter and it is
>in /usr/local/* then a root-password confirmation dialogue box should
>come up.

See 7/8. However, if you put the themes into /usr/local by hand, presumably
you can remove them by hand?



Michael Rogers