Re: [Usability] Running gnome-terminal as a desktop background

[Hynek Hanke <hanke brailcom org>]

Hi Alan,

> Please, please, please use the subject line.*

Yes, that was a mistake, very late in the night :( I first
started writing a version of this post, than decided against
it, canceled it entirely, started writing another one... and
didn't realize I need to fill the subject again and skipped the
warning dialog only to realized that was really really silly...

> For what it is worth I dont use the desktop icons much either but I do
> have quite a lot of icons on my panel instead.

That's what I do too.

> I think we have serious problems if a user feels the need to resort to the
> command line on a regular basis.  I firmly believe a Desktop has failed if
> you need to use the command line for ordinary use. 

At least in my case it is not that I *have to* use the command line
because what I want to do is impossible in the desktop. It's just 
a way of working that I prefer.

You ask what do I use command line for. Well, for example

cd /usr/share/doc/devilspie/examples/
cp sample-config.xml ~/.config
cd
emacs .config

for me as a fast typist, used to work with keyboard a lot,
with the power of the Bash, this is much easier for me to type
than to use any desktop file browser (although it's perfectly
possible to do it there).

It's a matter of convenience, not necessity.

Why do you think that doing things with menus/icons/dialogs is
definitely superior to doing things in command line? I think
these are two parallel approaches to how to do things and each of them
might be better suited to do certain things for certain users. Both
of them are very powerful!

What I want to do is not to abandong Gnome and return to the kernel
terminal. I want to nicely integrate both of these working methods
so that I could skip between them smoothly.

> Things should be at
> least possible to do without the terminal and we can then gradually look
> at making them more efficient and finding ways to streamline the workflow.

I don't recommend to reinvent the wheel. For some users, command line
is just the ideal approach at solving things (of course I welcome any
usability improvements to command line and terminals too!). I don't
understand why anybody would want to entirely abandon this user
interface. Make it possible to easily integrate it instead.

> I didn't really answer your question but I hope I have helped you get on
> the right track and I would appreciate if you could tell us a little more
> about the tasks you absolutely need the terminal for so that perhaps we
> could improve them in a more general way for people who would really
> prefer not to use the terminal (which would be me actually).

Another group of people who might, for very understandable reasons,
prefer to use terminal extensively are certain kinds of disabled people.

> Since I learned to use the command line I now prefer to use it if it will
> save me time or allow me to easily automate tedious and repetative tasks
> but I'd still prefer a point and click way to do everything.

Yes, of course I think there should be a point and click way to do
everything, because I understand that as well as I prefer to use command
line for many things, other users prefer to use a `point and click'
interface for many things. Some things are hard to understand in
terms of command line options and very simple in a nice dialog window.

BTW. Thank you and the others for all the advices so far.

With regards,
Hynek Hanke