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

[Daniele Levorato <daniele levorato infocamere it>]

Hi,
I think your idea is amazing but somehow difficult to apply. 
If I correctly understood, basically you are "moving the center" of the
desktop philosophy from the "Application" to the "Document" viewpoint.
The point about icons preview is good and can be implemented
successfully even in a application-based environment.
But about the overall "Document"-centered viewpoint...

1 - applications do exist and I have to install them when I configure
the system. You can't really hide the concept of application or you
should provide a default set of application, hidden to the user (really
inapplicable)

2 - If the Document IS the application, how the user would figure out
what "open with" is? or you would remove it? Removing "open with" would
be a big hit to usability, in my opinion. Actually I have several
applications, some of them operating on the same documents. Just think
about images or video: an application is focused on "displaying" images
(for example gqview) and his user interface is designed for that
purpose, while others (like gimp) are intended to edit images and their
UI is intended for that purpose. Would you use Gimp to just view images
or slide-show? it wouldn't be comfortable.

3 - Complex GUI cannot be simply "attached" as toolbar (or something
else) to the document. Just think about Gimp or Cinellera! it's really
impossible. There're some tasks (like video/image/text editing) that
need a complex GUI infrastructure so that it's impossible to "hide" the
application concept.

4 - Not all activities can be thought as documents. For example
navigating the web, ripping or mastering a DVD, so the concept of
application still remains for certain activities: it's more natural to
see them as "task based" activities rather then "document based".

5 - It's impossible to consider that the document "is" the application,
without the window concept: if I want to zoom the document or it's
really too large, you would apply scrollbars (to fit the screen if you
don't even have the "window" concept)... but in that moment the
application/window concept you're trying to hide will pop-up to the
user: he is not working on the document but on a view that someone is
giving of it... who is it? the application obviously. And finally how
would I close the document, resize it, move it? make every drag move the
window is not a good proposal since there're documents (images and pdf
for ex.) in which you can move the visible area in that way, rather than
moving the window, and this is a good usability point!

6 - Instant save deserves several drawbacks... the discussion would be
too long but basically in my opinion it's really better to leave to the
user the decision about when saving changes or discard them totally:
full history or undo-lists are too high requirements for every
application-development.

Finally, but this is my opinion, an environment where applications feels
like applications is better because is more "task oriented", more
natural. A "mixed" scenario would only clutter the desktop semplicity.


On Tue, 2005-04-19 at 20:46 +0200, Samuel Abels wrote:
> 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
> _______________________________________________
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> Usability gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability

                                    
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