Re: Applications Unnecessary?

[Greg K Nicholson <greg gkn me uk>]

> The good ol' document centric GNOME idea.

For each document, there should be a distinct View mode and an Edit
mode. We already have this for raster images (Eye of Gnome, GIMP),
paged documents (Evince, OOo/Abiword) and possibly others.

Then, for each document the user could choose to View or Edit it,
rather than “Open with Eye of Gnome” or “Open with GIMP”. If there's
no editor installed, no Edit option would be available.

In Edit mode, files should always be automatically and transparently
saved, with robust Undo lasting across sessions. (Older versions could
appear in Gnome Zeitgeist for deleting or branching.) We shouldn't ask
for a filename or location, because we shouldn't need to expose the
local filesystem to users. (Obviously, though, we'd need to get a
readable filename from somewhere when the file is sent to portable
media or a remote system.)

The flow would be (1) open existing file or create new file; (2)
change file; (3) close file. Ideally, it should be (1) switch display
to existing file or new, blank file; (2) change file; optionally (3)
switch display to something else.

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I have a much further-reaching idea for abstracting the chrome away
from applications and having Gnome handle it instead. Essentially,
apps would expose and respond to abstract “commands”, instead of menus
and buttons, and mouse- and keyboard-events.

Then the user could choose to have a menu bar; or a command-line–type
interface coupled with a toolbar showing the most relevant commands;
or a pop-up display of keyboard shortcuts and no graphical chrome; or
command icons on their wirelessly-connected portable device (i.e. a
remote control).

For the command-line case, each command should have equally-valid
synonyms (e.g. in English, Show = View = Display = See); there could
be a drop-down showing the gamut of possible commands. [1]

Jukebox-type views could be handled as saved
Tracker/Beagle/Spotlight–type searches, using filesystem-level
metadata instead of a local database (or just using a local database
as a cache). This would make play counts, ratings and other stats
app-neutral. Coupled with Gnome Zeitgeist, we wouldn't need to expose
the file system to users at all.

With this model, we wouldn't need to expose application names to the
user at all—except in the Preferred Applications dialogue—because
every app would have a consistent UI.

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[1] Aside: “Normal” users use command lines every day—their web
browser's location bar or Google's search field. IMO, the Unix- &
DOS-like command line is only awkward because: it requires specific
vocabulary (“cp”, but not “copy” or “duplicate”); and it doesn't
simply *ask* for parameters. If you asked me to (sudo) make you a
sandwich, I'd *ask* what you wanted in it. I wouldn't say “No. For
help on sandwich parameters, specify ‘--help’.”