Re: New mockups for shell - round 2

[Jon Nettleton <jon nettleton gmail com>]

On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 10:58 AM, david jordan <dmj726 sbcglobal net> wrote:
>
> One thing I'm seeing with these mockups is that the Add/Remove Programs... item is getting relegated into odd corners of the menu.  Add/Remove Programs is one of the most important and distinctive features that Linux has going for it.  The convenience of a good package manager scores us big kudos from new users.  Further, when new users come to our system from the land of architectural elements and fruit, they don't know the right way to get programs, and there are two ways they figure it out 1.) Their handy *nix guru friend shows it to them, 2.) They find Add/Remove in the menu.  Otherwise, they try to find executables on the web or compile from source.  Finding random binaries is potentially dangerous, and thinking you have to compile everything from source code really turns off newbies.  (Grandma won't even get this far.)  I suggest that Add/Remove is important enough to put in the top-level overlay, not because it is used every day, but because we can't afford to hide it in some submenu the user won't see until they've gone to the internet.


I think rather than a specific button Add/Remove Programs, we need to
make the experience more seamless.  When a user searches for
something, add at the bottom of the search, Fine New Program or some
such language.  The same with browsing, perhaps at the bottom of each
category there is an Install More selection that preselects Office
Applications as a query from the package manager.

I find a specific package manager a bit convoluted.  I feel
integrating it directly into the desktop workflow would be a far nice
experience.  Then down the road really go the next step to have a user
be able to easily rate a software application in the same context.

How great would it be for Open Source projects to get a good idea of
how their project was being used and who liked it.  This is really
something for the package manager and not the desktop though.

Jon