Re: [Usability] Evolution 2.0

[Ettore Perazzoli <ettore ximian com>]

On Sun, 2003-07-13 at 07:23, Daniel Borgmann wrote:
> 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?

Not really.  The common elements (i.e. the ones enforced by the
architecture) would be:

  - The split pane view (sources on the left, view on the right)

  - The "New" toolbar button (to create appointments, mails, contacts
    etc. from any component)

In addition to that, we would have certain menu and toolbar items in
canonical places -- but that's still what you want if you have separate
apps as well, for consistency's sake.

> 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. 

Yeah, but then -- why do we bother having tabs in the web browser?  If
we followed this argument, we should be looking for a window manager
level solution there as well.  :-)

> > 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 have multiple windows they end up being in different positions on
your screen, unless you have them all maximized -- and hence the
position of the visual elements changes when you switch between
components.

> 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.

There is not going to be any overhead in having an integrated shell,
because it will be possible to activate components on demand, without
having to launch them all at startup as we are doing now.

-- Ettore