Re: Some things I think GNOME should improve

[Les Paul <lespaul23es gmail com>]

2013/4/2 Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>:
> The help is already displayed by a separate application. You can see
> the list of all installed help by selecting Go -> All Documents.
>
> It sounds like you think apps shouldn't even link to their own help
> in their menus? I don't think that's a good idea. And I don't see
> why we should always show all the documents.
>
> If I'm looking at the help for Banshee, it's because I want to find
> an answer for something. I don't want to spend the day looking at
> help. And I don't care about the Evolution help. The primary design
> goal for the help is to make it easy to spend as little time as
> possible looking at it.
>
> --
> Shaun

I just see a few applications there. Tomboy, Banshee and some specific
manuals about network, gconf and so on. On the other hand, I don't see
why Evolution help would bother you while you're looking for Banshee
help. You could add the option to See -> All documents, for those who
bothers them to have that column.

I don't see why you would spend more time this way. In the end, you'd
save time, because you could close the windows without clicking the
window title, looking for "Exit" (which location depends on the
options that had the application) and repeat the proccess again if you
want to close several maximized windows. The point is that exit of an
application (which is something we do constantly) this way is
inefficient, and it is because of options which appear on the window
titles.

2013/4/2 Adam Tauno Williams <awilliam whitemice org>:
> Eh?  What metric tells you these are "barely used"?

You can look for information about it, but most users use default
settings. For example:
http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2011/09/14/do-users-change-their-settings/

And I am pretty sure that "Help" is even less used.


> No, seems far far less intuitive to me.  I am in the application - why
> can't I just adjust the settings there?  I'm already there.  Why do I
> need to go to something else?  And if I open Help from an application ->
> I get the help FOR THAT APPLICATION!
>
> This seems like modularization for the sake of modularization.  And
> breaks the flow of using GNOME apps vs. non-GNOME apps - which will not
> follow the convention and the settings app will be oblivious to them.
> And if I develop that an app I want to work on GNOME, it won't follow
> that convention if I also want it to work on any other platform /
> environment.

The flow is already broken. Nautilus is closed differently of
Chromium, for example.