[Usability] Running gnome-terminal as a desktop background

[Phil Bull <philbull gmail com>]

On Fri, 2005-09-16 at 03:39 +0100, Alan Horkan wrote:

> I think we have serious problems if a user feels the need to resort to
> the
> command line on a regular basis.

True. A lot of users don't know what a command line is, let alone how to
use one.

> I firmly believe a Desktop has failed if
> you need to use the command line for ordinary use.

Command lines are very powerful interfaces, and can be used to achieve
many tasks simply, quickly and efficiently. For ordinary use, command
lines could offer a lot of benefits to a user.

The problem is not that command lines are an inherently inferior way of
interacting with a computer 'in ordinary use', it's that currently they
aren't easy enough to use for a lot of people!

Most of what's wrong with a CLI is that it uses a reasonably restrictive
syntax, requires the user to know vaguely what they are doing, and gives
unfriendly/terse output. These problems have relegated the command line
to being a power user tool, which is a shame. But the problems aren't
the fault of the CLI model, they're the fault of current CLI
implementations, which aren't exactly targeted at novice users...

A nice, simple, easy to use CLI, with a more natural syntax and more
hinting would be ideal. I'd much rather type:

get new mail

and the computer just do it than open Evolution myself, press
Send/Receive All...

The closest thing we have to this at the moment is GNOME Command
Interface, which to me looks very promising:

http://www.stanford.edu/~dramage/gci/

> 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.

Equally, I think it should be possible to do many things without a
graphical interface. Of course some things will always need a graphical
UI, but for accessibility reasons it's always nice to have the keyboard
there as a backup.

Just my $0.02

-- 
Phil Bull
www.livejournal.com/users/philbull