Re: [gnome-summary] Gnome Summary Future Plans

["jorge o. castro" <jorge whiprush org>]

Jim Hodapp wrote:
> Francesco,
>
>     Excellent, what do you specifically want to help work on?  I'm thinking
> about creating a new publication for GNOME that comes out monthly that would
> be more like an online magazine (think LinuxJournal for GNOME).  If that's
> what you meant then we should talk.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jim Hodapp

We spoke about your "gnomejournal" idea on irc and you wanted me to 
chime in on the list, so here I am. Disclaimer: I'm new here and am just 
looking for a way to start getting involved with GNOME, so I figured 
this might be a good idea.

Some thoughts I had:

a) There's a lack of "original content" to report on outside of the 
normal news channels. Rehashing footnotes + g-s + planet would be kind 
of futile. What would make sense is original content that is gnome 
related, I was thinking taking something like "GNOME tips" and expanding 
it further into full length features.

b) You could tie in the announcements from g-s into the mag. For 
example, let's say Foo 2.0 is announced, maybe that month you can go 
into detail on "Using Foo 2.0 to Frobnicate Your Documents". As an 
another example, I frequently read that some people don't like the 
spatial nautilus, and then quickly say "maybe I just don't _get it_", or 
"I think I'm using it wrong."  This is where something like "A Visual 
Tour through the new Nautilus" or something might come in handy.

Another example: 
http://primates.ximian.com/~rml/blog/archives/000327.html, where rml 
says "Havoc mentioned awhile back that the concepts of minimizing and 
workspaces are a little contradictory -- you can either adopt this 
multiple-virtual-workspace paradigm, or you can adopt the 
single-workspace-with-minimizing thing. I think I agree. I never 
minimize. In fact, I will go so far as to say minimizing windows 
minimizes yourself. It shrinks you as a person. Don't do it."

WHOA! Why didn't someone tell me this before? Am I using GNOME wrong? 
What's the multiple-virtual-workspace paradigm, and I supposed to be 
using it? It'd be totally sweet if someone would sort of show me (the 
user) some of these abstract ideas.

And that's just windowing. Remember the first time you opened dashboard? 
I sat there looking at it for 2 minutes thinking "well now what I 
supposed to do with this?" It wasn't until I read blogs and articles 
about the whole "relevant information at a glance" that the idea kicked 
in. I still have no idea how VFolders are supposed to work in Evolution 
because I've never seen it explained anywhere in a way that  explains to 
me why they rule so much.

Perhaps this is an area where we can find a niche, and communicate the 
desktop paradigms of GNOME in plain $language, with lots of screenshots 
and detail, plus little tips and tricks that just don't seem to be 
written down anywhere. I've been using GNOME since "October GNOME", and 
I just found the "use the scrollwheel over the volume widget to adjust 
volume" last month! These are gold! We just need to write them down in a 
fun and interesting manner that people will find interest in.

Granted this might sound like it's just rehashing of the User Guides, 
but perhaps a more focused approach on certain topics would lead users 
to the documentation for reference.

long winded,

jorge

PS - Count me in for working on this.