Re: [Usability] splash screen, session tangent

[Bryan Clark <bclark redhat com>]

On Wed, 2004-10-20 at 23:36 +0100, Iain * wrote:
> A few ideas from the top of my head...
> How about session is never saved when you log out.
> Instead we provide a simple method (a capplet thingy perhaps?) to
> create named sessions
> Which are provided to the user in GDM to select from as well as a blank.

One 'security/privacy' issue is that you can't reveal anything about a
users session until they have successfully authenticated.

> Or  we always save session
> but then in GDM we provide the option to choose between a blank session 
> (where only the default applications that create the desktop are
> started as well as any extra apps the admin has set up)
> and the last running session?
> 
> That way there's no frantic clicking of images in the splash screen,
> and the user gets to have the choice.

Yes, I thought about these, but I thought it would be better to let
people just log in right away and while we are setting up the system we
allow them to choose these applications.  Not sure if it would be better
to allow them to choose initially, but it seems that if we do the splash
screen correctly and smoothly we can provide the same choices at what I
hope is a more appropriate time.

This is also why I was asking about a determined time that the splash
screen is available for.  If we show the splash screen for a certain
amount of time and give better options of ALL or NONE or SELECT.

Another thing I wanted to stress working on in the session stuff is that
the GNOME Desktop base components become visible with out the launchers
and applets and panel and nautilus all loading individually.  Instead
those elements have a clear not present -> loaded state where they are
visible.  This gives us a good amount of time to work with and shows
less flashing and half-active states [1] of the desktop.  

Cheers,
~ Bryan

[1] states where things are loading and you can see them, but not really
interact with them.