Re: A few suggestions

[Giovanni Campagna <scampa giovanni gmail com>]

Il giorno gio, 25/11/2010 alle 19.44 +0530, dE . ha scritto:
> Finally the doc is complete, the devs/designers might like to have a look.

Ok, first of all, despite the tag on my bugzilla account, I'm not a
gnome-shell developer, rather a contributor, I have no official stance
on what will/will not be part of gnome-shell, now or in the future.
So the following is all IMHO:

Let's start with the problems:

1) Ok, we have a problem with fast window switching. I reported that as
gnomebug 635527.
It goes a long way detailing why and when a user needs, or should need,
to change a window, and is pending input from designers on what UI is
the best to achieve this.
(Similarly, there are bugs for changing the alt-tab behavior and make it
more intuitive)

2) There is no better than the Shell in maximizing the space available
for windows: the only panel taking space is the top one, whereas in
GNOME 2 you have a top one and a bottom one. That's 24px more space, in
gnome-shell.

3) Previews of what is happening on all workspaces will be back soon,
with the second iteration of the overview-relayout introducing the
workspace sidebar on the right.
Of course, this kind of "summary" belongs logically to the Overview,
because when you're inside the workspace, all the attention should be on
the current task, not on the background.
Also, you should expect asynchronous notifications of background tasks
to come through the notification area, so that nothing requires you to
interrupt your workflow.

4) The application picker is not finished, I suppose. The mockups in
gnome-shell-design show application categories on the right, which would
make this moot.

5) This is not possible. After all, we did learn how to use our
computers when we started, and we did learn the differences between
GNOME, KDE, Mac or Windows.
If the user is not open to the change, it will not change, and keep
GNOME 2, no matter how clean, efficient, polished, ergonomic and working
is GNOME Shell.
On the other hand, it is possible to make the shell more intuitive. But
then, the top panel is intuitive: it is a menu bar, a concept the user
knows, with two main buttons (beyond user menu, status icons and the
clock). One is the application menu, and the user will learn this as
soon as it clicks it (and yes, it is the first instinct you have with
that), and be no more concerned. The other opens the Activity Overview,
which is also very intuitive: on the left you find launchers and open
applications, clearly distinguished; in the center you find your
desktop, recognizable by the background, or if you want applications,
just click exactly "Applications". Nothing else is required to use the
shell (advanced features like the hot corner, the alt-tab, the message
tray, etc. are discovered while using).

6) Clicking in window thumbnails is instantaneous (providing for
rendering bugs...), same is clicking in active apps. For inactive apps,
of course you need to wait for the app to launch.
So, no problem here.

Now on to the proposals. Note though that similar problems call for
different solutions in different situations. If gnome didn't want to be
different than competition, it would have kept gnome-panel; instead,
they are trying innovative answers to the same questions.

1) Widgets and docking:
Please no! This is not KDE, and neither this is Enlightment. We don't
need exaggerate flexibility, we want reasonable and workable defaults.
I don't want to accidentally resize my top panel, and then not be able
to find the right size and get my status icon forever scaled. I don't
want widgets on my desktops, I want windows (widgets, if needed, go on
the overview or in the message tray). I don't want floating, isolated,
bluetooth or battery indicators. I don't want to lose the clock just
because I clicked with the wrong button (or the right? :D ). I don't
want resolution changes to completely mess my carefully crafted widget
layout.

2) Ignoring dockability and resizability, why is this necessary? Why is
this better than any other solution for problem 1)?

3) How is this to be implemented? You don't describe it much, rather
praise its qualities for addressing problems 1 and 3.
Also, note that the same qualities are exposed by the shell activity
overview (it has windows with titles, it has app icons).
Also also, you describe automatic opening of some UI that is "almost
full screen". Isn't that prone to accidental opening, with consequent
distraction?

4) Same for solution 3, mostly (except that it addresses only problem
3).

5) Why is this better than current application view, possibly with
categories?

6) How is this different from the Application view in the
overview-relayout?
How would you deal with the user accidentally hovering out and then
having to start off again the quest for the app?

7) Same for solution 4 (except that there is no Places view in current
gnome-shell, but don't worry, I am sure there will be)

8) How this relates to nautilus? Isn't that a better place for file
management? Aren't individual apps expected to do archiving and tagging
(like, say, Shotwell), possibly with a shared system like tracker?
Are we expecting the user to handle such a difficult concept like file
systems? Our minds are not trees, they're more like graphs and networks,
with loose generic connections among the nodes.

9) We have a notification area. No actually we have two: a system status
area and a message tray.

10) We have that, it is called "dash"

11) You're not expected to zoom in / out

12) Is there enough space for all that stuff in a single panel? I mean,
the average is still 1024x768 out there.

13) Uhm... did you know that Alt+<letter> selects the menu with that
letter underlined, in all Gtk+ apps, with no changes to shell or panel?

14) Yes, alt-tab can be improved. There are many bugs discussing that:
gnomebug 606867, gnomebug 634173, gnomebug 621287, gnomebug 625457. Pick
the one you find the most appropriate, and comment there.

15) Is the second iceweasel instance relevant to your current task? Go
to gnomebug 635527 (or use tabbed browsing :) ). Else, go to activities
overview.

16) Animation time is no issue here, it is less that your mental
reaction time (and GNOME 2 has animations, if running with compositing).
Also, if you're switching workspace, you're switching task, in which
case the answer is always Activities Overview.

17) Better because...?

18) Why do you have two instances of the same application for one task?
File a bug on that app, so that is implements some tabbed interface.

19) Autohiding is a problem as moving the mouse too near will show the
panel instead of the underlying widget you were aiming.

20) If you are searching for the app (and you're not using the search
bar), an overall view of all the applications is better, as you can
quickly scan them to find the most useful.
If you already know what app you want, either use the search bar
(<super>firefox<enter>, for example, works if you ignore rendering
problems) or make it a preferred app.
Also, you can launch multiple applications by dragging all of them to a
workspace.

21) No, it will be the second, the first one is Unity.
And it is supposed to work with all the Intel cards from i915 (i845
would be enough, but the drivers are broken). Not at all like an nVidia
GeForce, you see.
Rendering bugs are rendering bugs, report them to gnome-shell, mutter,
clutter, Xorg, mesa or linux.

22) Sticky (utility) windows should be handled as such (they should be
hidden behind the main window). If this does not happen, file a bug
against mutter.

23) 3 applications? You can actually have many more in the dash.

24) Dragging is definitely easier and more intuitive than a context
menu. Beyond that, right-click on the window title, the menu is still
there.

25) You want an overview, go to the "overview". You want to see if you
have running downloads, look at the message tray.

26) GNOME 2 has a panel there as well... (and ctrl-w is not difficult to
learn)

Hope this addresses all of your concerns, I'll be happy to clarify
further.

> _______________________________________________
> gnome-shell-list mailing list
> gnome-shell-list gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list

Giovanni