Re: Initial Thoughts

[Bastien Nocera <hadess hadess net>]

On Thu, 2010-11-04 at 15:05 +0000, Calum K Pringle wrote:
> Hey everyone, 
> 
> 
> I’m Calum - new Interaction Designer at Canonical, nice to meet you
> all!
> 
> 
> I’ve been having a look through the control center and looking out for
> areas that we could really improve on in terms of usability, clarity
> and good organisation! Think there is a real opportunity for Gnome
> 3.0 to be much clearer in the way it presents settings.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Before I get into specifics, there are a couple of things I’d like to
> open up for discussion :
>       * How do we feel about the visibility of redundant options? For
>         example, in “Monitors” there are a few options that are only
>         accessible when a second monitor is in use.
>       * Do we have a clear idea of what should and shouldn’t be
>         included in the preferences and settings? For example
>         Passwords and Encryption keys has its own preferences, but
>         then what about Encryption and Keyrings? 

This should probably be merged into a single "Privacy" or "Security"
panel (I wanted to have a way to disable my infra-red port on my Mac,
and this is where Apple implements it in MacOS X).

>       * Another thought I would like to raise is that of application
>         specific settings; for example Empathy has instant messaging
>         accounts that are used mainly in Empathy but could be used in
>         other applications as well, so should the setting exist inside
>         empathy or separate like “Messaging and Voip Accounts”. Should
>         these be retitled to settings for those applications only, and
>         then live inside an “Internet” heading of preferences? This
>         then acknowledges the rapidly changing use of social network
>         applications, and when people download applications, there is
>         opportunity for developers to have a separate preference
>         option?

This should all be integrated into "Web Accounts". Did you look at the
mockups available at:
http://gitorious.org/gnome-design/gnome-design ?

There's already a mockup for the web accounts stuff, just need a person
to work on it.

>       * What will the top panel / notification area be called in Gnome
>         Shell? There are checkboxes within settings windows referring
>         to this top bar which add indicators, and we need to be
>         consistent in communicating that they apply to the same area.

Yes, this will need sorting out, because we can't call it a panel, or a
menu bar, as it's neither.

> On the first question, I agree that there is opportunity to either
> make the user comfortable in the knowledge that those options are
> available when they want to carry out the relevant task, but there is
> a balance needed with simplicity. I don't think I'm there yet, but I
> quickly drew up a couple of examples of my thinking, but would like to
> hear other input on this, as for me, things like “on” and “off” was a
> surprise at the first touch point.

Some of the widgets (like the on/off radio buttons) are actually waiting
on a better "light-switch" widget.

<snip>
If you're going to post pictures, please make sure to use a decent font
for the text, or even better, make the text be separate so we can
actually quote it in mail answers.

The problem with your thinking is that the display panel is not there to
switch resolutions, but to allow easy setup of projectors, or external
displays.

This isn't to say that switching resolutions should be impossible, but
it's not the goal of the tool.

Rotating the screens is also not a priority, as we hope to handle that
through key presses (there's a patch to that effect in GNOME bugzilla)
or auto-detection (for tablet laptops).

The "add monitor to top panel" (or whatever the option was called
before) was removed. It showing a monitor icon in the status area, and
allowed users to change the resolution of the monitor. It would be so
seldom used that it didn't make sense. There's a gnome-shell bug opened
about adding something similar (quick access) but it would probably be
to rotate screens rather than switch resolutions.

You're probably also confusing it with the new radio button "Include Top
Menu Bar" (which really needs renaming), which would select the primary
monitor, and show the panel/top menu bar in that particular monitor.

> Other areas that have caught my attention:
> 
> 
> Keyboard, Keyboard Input Methods, and Keyboard Shortcuts. I would love
> to spend some time expanding on their definition, and seeing if there
> are any areas that can be merged; at the moment there is a lot of
> terminology repeated in each, but for different purposes. It’d also be
> a good exercise to maybe redesign the display of keyboard shortcuts
> into something less intense!
> 
> 
> I would suggest we change some of the terminology here too; for
> example “input method” is a secondary tab within the Keyboard Input
> Method preference panel; it might be appropriate to change the order.
> I was surprised that an install window opened when I first clicked
> into this setting too - it might be nice to incorporate this more
> seamlessly in the ‘all in panel’ system.
> 
> 
> The tabbed approach works, and could be something that helps us
> reorganise the keyboard specifications as a whole.

The keyboard preferences are a bit of a mess, and need changes. The main
blocker is the availability of libraries to make that work easier for
us, and hide Input Method and layout selection differences for us.

I believe Karl Lattimer is working on that, but he hasn't contacted any
of the people designing the control-center.

> I look forward to hearing everyone's opinions, and would love the
> opportunity to work some more on the monitors and keyboard
> preferences, being new to all this, who has most recently been
> involved in these aspects? I would hope that this could help inform
> the structure of other preference panels.

FWIW, Jon already implemented the display panel pretty much how we'd
want it for GNOME 3. Just make sure you actually test something that's
new enough.

Cheers