Re: [gnome-love] GNOME user environment brainstorming

[Matthew Walton <mxw00u Cs Nott AC UK>]

Iain wrote:

> Why can't we put this stuff on the Desktop like we used to?
I may have mentioned already that I hate having stuff on the desktop... 
mine's totally empty.

> > - being able to add things at least would increase the 
> > functionality vastly 
>
> Being able to remove it entirely would help mine. I hate things like
> that on my desktop :) Like the ~/Nautilus folder that just won't go
> away.
Or at least make it so that it's not the only way to do things? The 
notion of it as a virtual folder seems to support that idea.

> > It always 
> > seemed obvious to me, and it's the same way most people's Windows 
> > systems work (assuming they use their QuickLaunch bars, that is).
>
> More people I know use the desktop for program launchers than the quick
> launch bar, simply because the desktop holds a lot more stuff, has more
> informative text and larger icons.
But why? In Windows, people use maximised windows almost all the time, 
thus burying all their launchers. Okay, in Linux it does seem that some 
people at least tend to use more nonmaximised windows (I do) but still 
there are some apps that are going to hide the desktop - I see very few 
people using web browsers that aren't maximised, for example, unless 
they're running REALLY high res desktops on enormous monitors.

> Yeah, why? Apart from "Because thats what windows does" If it's going to
> have every program in the path, thats overwhelming, and if it's going to
> only have gnome apps, then why duplicate the operation of the menus?
> I think to leave the run dialog as it is (maybe prettier) is perfectly
> okay.
Definitely make the run dialog prettier. Add to Favourites might be good 
to have still though - it could pop up a dialog or something to make 
sure the icon's correct (this could perhaps only appear on 
Intermediate/Advanced user levels?)

> Delete all the duplicate applets (mainly this is in the monitors section
> too).
The monitors also need deuglifying - no wonder so many people use Gkrellm...

> Maybe allow "Priority text" like Bonobo does. So that important buttons
> have the text to the right of the icon, and the rest don't. 
Yes, that sounds good. My Win2000 directory views have that and it's 
pretty good.

> If we could make a seperate package for just the GtkMozEmbedded stuff,
> then we could offer Galeon as the GNOME web browser, and Nautilus could
> still do the embedding stuff if it/the user wanted.
That's something I'd really love, especially when Evolution lets me 
check my mail at all, and Balsa is capable of checking it in less than 
45 seconds...

> A simple GTKHtml browser could be written. I don't see documentation
> having much in the way of CSS, Javascript etc. And from the browser that
> was formerly known as Encompass showed, it was capable of loading it in
> seconds :)
That's good. I must remember to consider people who don't have 256MB or 
more of RAM to play with - even a fast-loading GtkEmbedMoz would be big, 
I think. And you are of course perfectly right - who needs Javascript in 
help files? CSS is good though - if the help files were written using 
HTML/XHTML that used structural tags only (strictly enforced!) there 
could be a system-wide help file stylesheet or something to make it 
match your Gtk theme... is that a bit silly? This is what happens when 
"Brainstorm" appears in the subject line...

--
Matthew Walton
matthew alledora co uk
                                                            
Defenestration (n) -
 1) The act of throwing somebody out of a window            
 2) An entertaining pasttime involving a tall building, an
    open window and a stack of AOL and/or Microsoft CD-ROMs

Miri it is whil Linux ilast