Re: [gnome-love] GNOME user environment brainstorming

[Matthew Walton <mxw00u Cs Nott AC UK>]

Okay, just some random thoughts. Total crap, I'm sure.

Havoc Pennington wrote:

> Our thought is something like:
>   http://people.redhat.com/~hp/starthere.png
That's nice. I like.

> No doubt the name "Start Here" is controversial, other suggestions so
> far are "Lobby," "Foyer," "Launchpad," "Begin," "Begin Here," "Hat
> rack," "Master Control Program," etc. it was mostly downhill from
> there. User testing is the obvious way to resolve this issue, so let's
> avoid a long thread. ;-)
"Start Here" is a horrendous name. Can't think of anything great right 
now though :-) I'm not good with names.

> One question is whether you can edit Start Here like a normal folder;
> allowing that would make it more difficult to do upgrades between OS
> versions where you add/remove Start Here items, and might cause people
> to lose things and wonder where they went. Don't know.
Maybe only allow editing on Advanced user level? Or Advanced and 
Intermediate? I wouldn't want something like that on my system to be 
non-editable - being able to add things at least would increase the 
functionality vastly - it's one of the things lacking in Windows' My 
Computer, since you seem to be taking ideas from that why not just be 
better than it?

> - desktop is for:
>    - user shortcuts to programs, etc.
>    - showing removable devices
>    - Trash, Home, Start Here icons
As long as I can get rid of all the icons I don't like (and that means 
any and all and probably every single last one of the nasty things) then 
that's fine by me :-)

> There's some possible confusion about shortcut buttons on panel vs. on
> desktop, especially since panel icons require single-click, desktop
> double-click.
Simple. Get rid of all desktop icons! I understand some people like them 
though... but seriously, I've never event thought about this! It always 
seemed obvious to me, and it's the same way most people's Windows 
systems work (assuming they use their QuickLaunch bars, that is).

> - Remove hide/show arrows on panel
Keep them, or at least keep the buttons! But definitely make them 
prettier. Those nasty monochrome bitmaps... how did they survive into 
Gnome 1.4?

> - Nautilus mini-icon in task list looks like a cheese puff; fix it
I'm not sure about that, but it certainly doesn't look anything like you 
might expect it to considering what Nautilus does.

> - Remove bevels from desk guide, use a more "flat" appearance
Yes please.

> - foot menu rationalization:
>    - probably remove Applets, KDE menus, and Panel submenus here at least
Some way of accessing KDE menus needs to be kept - with the KDE menu 
icons! (I don't get them, does anyone else?), but perhaps not where it 
is at the moment. We want interoperability, right?

> - make Run Program dialog have a browser CList that shows all known
>  programs, with icons if any, and ability to sort by executable name, 
>  human-readable name, by clicking headers. Probably not a tree, just
>  an alphabetic list.
Why?

> - delete all the non-default clock applets
Please do. They're all awful.

> - Remove or configurably remove folder heading things from Programs
>  menu, based on Calum's usability test
Configurably I think.

> - Turn off text for toolbar icons by default?
I'd say no to that... although to be honest, it never looks right with 
text or without it.

> - Downplay web browser aspect; Mozilla/Galeon encouraged for real
>  browsing. (Alternative: follow Galeon and try to be a full web
>  browser, but seems like it would cause a lot of clutter.)
Get rid of it totally. That's probably a bit of a radical way to go 
about it though... still, it seems fairly pointless to me. Yes, it's 
what Konqueror does, but do we want to be copying Konqueror all the 
time? Even Microsoft have kept some kind of distinction between their 
file manager and web browser, even if they are the same program underneath.

> - Possible side panel with Favorites, displaying the same Favorites
>  as the panel and in the Start Here "Favorites" folder?
That'd be handy.

> - Theme Selector is revealed by Calum's testing to be a bad name;
>  change to "Colors & Fonts" or "Appearance."
Please don't call it "Colors & Fonts". That's a hideous name, and it 
just doesn't cover everything such a capplet would be capable of changing.

> - destroy gnome-help-browser, use Mozilla/Nautilus/something always
Once Mozilla's finished and running faster than a drunken elephant, yes. 
Not that that stops me using it...

That's my... err... fifty thousand pounds.