Re: [Usability] Evolution 2.0

[Daniel Borgmann <spark-mailinglists web de>]

[Argh, I wasn't really awake yet I assume and just replied. Resending to list, sorry!]

Hello,

first of all, I, too, am a strong supporter of splitting up Evolution.
:) It seems to be more in line with where GNOME is heading (document
centric?) and besides, it works well for Mozilla and OpenOffice. ;) Of
course all the parts should still always work perfectly together.


> And if we do this architectural work, the Evolution components will be
> able to run without each other.  The shell will be so minimal that it
> would hardly do anything at all, so you could run a shell with the mail
> component in it, a shell with the addressbook in it, and one with the
> calendar in it.  I.e. you'll actually have three separate apps.

This is definitely a huge improvement. I just wonder if it wouldn't be
better for the usability of each part to be completely separated in the
long run. For example what's useful for a calender doesn't have to be
useful for a mail folder or the task list. With the shell approach, you
are basically limited to making each main window a subset of this shell,
aren't you?


> On the other hand, I am not sure we want to altogether give up the
> ability to integrate the components in the same app.  It does have a
> usability advantage over strictly separate apps, since you can have all
> the groupware-related pieces of information in the same spot and you
> don't have to mess with multiple windows.  (Also, it's necessary for
> Connector to keep working, but we can ignore that for now.)

The only usability advantage (which you point it) seems to be related to
window switching. I wonder if this couldn't be solved more elegantly on
the window manager level. For example if Metacity would group all
Evolution windows (I'm not saying that it should), it wouldn't be too
much of a "mess" to switch between them even for "all windows maximized"
users, while keeping the advantage that you have all your views as
separate windows, simplifying drag and drop operations for example or
comparing stuff with each other. I'm sure there are countless other
possibilities to put windows into logical groups and make it trivial to
switch between them. Heck, even multiple workspaces are one of them. :)


> On the other hand, having calendar, mail and addressbook in the same
> view (as in Anna's mockups) helps usability since the folder selector
> pane and the view pane are always in the same spot and you don't have to
> mess with the WM when switching e.g. between your schedule and your
> mail.  Also you have the "New" button always in the same spot, the
> search bar is always in the same spot, and so on.

This could still be the case with separate windows, as long as it's
wanted.


> If you are using calendar, mail and contacts at the same time (as it is
> the case with many Evolution users), then using separate programs for
> them is more awkward than having them all nicely integrated in the same
> UI.  If you want, it's a bit like browsing the web with tabs vs. without
> tabs.

But only a bit. :) Tabs can be useful for a browser because you never
know how many windows you want open at the same time and it makes it
trivial to load slow loading pages in the background while still viewing
other pages. I don't see this issues with Evolution and I see no other
reasons why Evolution windows need to be merged into one. A user might
even want to read his mail with Evolution, use KOrganizer as calender
and gtodo for his tasklist (just examples), in which case it would be a
huge advantage if the Evolution mail window would be designed to work in
a multi-window environment, without all the overhead.

Greets,
Daniel