Re: Device icons -- suggestion

[William Lovaton <williama_lovaton coomeva com co>]

I would like to point to a related discussion in d-d-l
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2004-
December/msg00030.html

To summarize, the idea is to solve discoverability like John says.
Showing the devices in the desktop is not a very good idea so we should
use the notification area to tell the user that there is a new device in
the system.  This notification should be there for a fixed amount of
time before disappearing.  Remember: notification area is just for
notifications.

Further discussion in that thread was about the problem of connecting
multiple devices at a time so, how many icons should appear in the
notification area?  I think a good idea would be to show only one
notification and when the user clicks on it, the Computer place is
opened so he can see every single volume.

That way we don't clutter the desktop with device icons and improve
discoverability.

However I have a doubt.  What happens with the CD/DVD drive or the
floppy drive?? Should that kind of device still be showed on the
desktop?  I'm not sure but I think the answer is no.  They shouldn't
receive special treatment.


-William



El mar, 14-12-2004 a las 16:29 -0500, John (J5) Palmieri escribió:
> On Tue, 2004-12-14 at 16:00 -0500, Logan Rathbone wrote:
> > NOTE:  This is my 2nd time sending this message -- the first time I sent it, it did not get posted to the list, possibly because I'm using Postfix that hasn't been configured securely enough.  Anyway, here's try #2 using my university's SMTP server:
> > 
> > I noticed as of GNOME 2.6 there has been a new "Computer" icon drawn on the desktop.  When I first saw it, I thought it was a really good idea -- I figured that the device icons would then be confined to the Computer Place, keeping the desktop more organized.
> > 
> > But, I soon found that all mounted devices wind up, in addition to the Computer Place, directly on the desktop.  I think that sort of defeats the purpose of the Computer place entirely -- what's the point of having it if mounted devices end up on the desktop anyway?
> > 
> > My suggestion is to keep the Computer Place -- it's great.  But stop mounted devices from ending up on the desktop, and confine them to the Computer Place.
> 
> This can be disabled.  Jaap gave details on how to do this.  The reason
> for having volumes show up on the desktop is for discoverability. 
> 
> -- 
> John (J5) Palmieri
> Associate Software Engineer
> Desktop Group
> Red Hat, Inc.
> Blog: http://martianrock.com
>