Re: [Usability] Are the gnome-terminal's Profiles really necessary?

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt myrealbox com>]

On Dec 5, 2007, at 8:43 PM, Dylan McCall wrote:
> ...
> I am thinking of Gnome-Terminal not just as any terminal, but as the 
> default terminal; the terminal we generally anticipate people to be 
> using when they are new to the GNOME desktop; I am not thinking of it 
> as a power-user terminal, for which Profiles have many reasons to 
> exist.

I generally anticipate people to not be using *any* terminal when they 
are new to an operating system based on Gnome.

Some people will use gnome-terminal often, however -- primarily 
scientists and software developers. While for them a terminal is still 
a means to an end rather than an end in itself, we can expect them to 
be more comfortable with a more complex interface.

> ...
> It is common for a program in GNOME to be configured via Edit -> 
> Preferences. However, the terminal, of all things, considers itself 
> different.
> ...
> First off, Profiles in the menu does not in any way demonstrate its 
> purpose to the user. (Which is simply to change program preferences). 
> Furthermore, even after opening Profiles, the dialog continues to make 
> little sense.

I agree with these points. This could be solved by making profiles less 
prominent -- reducing them to an option menu and a couple of buttons at 
the top of a Preferences window, similar to how locations are handled 
in the Network settings.

> ...
> Having preferences profiles strikes me as very unnecessary here. Don't 
> get me wrong, I see the benefit of changing some behaviours of the 
> terminal for certain uses, but "most users" (assuming the average 
> user, some day, is not tech-savy) are not going to care.
> ...

I don't know why gnome-terminal profiles exist, and I'd like to read 
descriptions from people who use them of what they use them for.

We should be careful of not trying to design software to cater for 
people who are never going to use it anyway.

Cheers
--
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/