[Usability] GNOME3: Handling/Opening Documents (Website for Contributing Ideas?)

[Samuel Abels <newsgroups debain org>]

Hello,

Is 

http://live.gnome.org/ThreePointZero

the website were users are supposed to add ideas for G3?
Either way, comments may not be a bad idea, so here's a mail first.

Currently, most of the GNOME applications feel like, well, applications.
I thought about why, for example, a word processor does not feel like
what I believe it in essence should: A sheet of paper.
How could it be fixed?

* Add better interaction of the document's icon with the application:
   - The icon should be a thumbnailed preview of the actual document.
     (This is actually possible today.)
   - When the mouse hovers over the document, it should automagically
     zoom in a little. (Ok, also may be possible with Gnome 2.x)
   - When the icon is clicked, make it display a small progressbar,
     optimally one that is attached to the icon.
   - When the application is loaded, the document zooms to real size and
     the toolbar is attached. There is no real window border and the
     controls are kept to a minimum. Basically, the application IS the
     paper.
   - Consequently, when the application is closed, it zooms out and
     becomes an icon again.

* The above is implicitely also a plea for "Instant Save". If the
document IS the paper, it needs to save changes immediately. That of
course also means that a history needs to be saved elsewhere, so that
when an application crashes the history is not lost. Instant save has
also the advantage to let you get rid of the "Save" (and "Save all")
button, so even less clutter for the GUI.

The same could be done with movies: When clicked, play the movie as a
thumbnail to indicate the load process, then zoom to the real size and
restart.

A bit less serious sidenote: If you think more into this direction, you
could make the user use a virtual pen to write on the virtual paper. Or,
maybe even make him use a real pen to write on real paper. What did we
have computers for, again? ;)

-Samuel