Re: [Usability] An extended default applications dialog

[Christian Neumair <chris gnome-de org>]

Am Samstag, den 20.01.2007, 08:46 +1000 schrieb Kai Willadsen:
> 
> > Again, if the categorisation is done well, and thought out there is
> no
> > reason that it can't work (in my opinion). Christian's mock-up is a
> good
> > solution, someone may be able to do better. As I said above, in his
> > mock-up the individual file-types would be tucked away in the
> exceptions
> > bit, so most users wouldn't need to see them.
> > 
> > If you haven't seen Christian's mock-up there is a link somewhere in
> > here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Usability/SpecEnhancedPreferredApps
> 
> It's an interesting approach, and it addresses a use case that isn't
> addressed by the current system. I personally feel that corner-cases
> are
> likely to interfere with it working properly, but that's a pure hunch.

I'm extremely interested in such feedback! :)
The categories I made are rather random and just a list from the top of
my head. I asked people to come up with their own ideas, but I didn't
get any feedback until now.

Note that we may also add code for setting Image Viewer and Image Editor
separately, and let the user pick whether he wants to edit or view them
from the context menu, as we have gthumb and eog as viewers.

We may also allow that each MIME type can register against a category.

> IMO, enumerating all of the specific file types that people are likely
> to care about is going to get ugly. The expectations about what file
> types are easily configurable (i.e., without getting into exceptions)
> may well be long and somewhat confusing. For example:

> * PDF files are probably a top-level item, PS files are not. They
> clearly come under the same category; what would it be called?

I'm not sure, really. PS + PDF are really an own class of documents. You
usually use acroread (PDF only) or evince. Having both a viewer and an
editor option for this may also be useful.

Note that we could also add an extra button for dealing with
uncategorized file types.

> * Photos != jpg/gif files downloaded from the web. These are actually
> probably the same file type, which is fun.

Pardon?

> * Vector graphics != raster graphics (but try explaining that to a
> random user). I don't want to view svg files in the GIMP, I want to
> view
> *all* vector graphics in Inkscape. Would vector graphics be exposed as
> a
> top level type? it's clearly a sensible group of file types.

Yeah, that is a good idea I've also been considering.

> * All office types are sensible top-level types, but I suspect that
> users (particularly people running MS Office under wine) are more
> likely
> to think in terms of OpenOffice files vs. MS Office files than in
> terms
> of Spreadsheet, Word Processor, etc.

We can offer to change the association for a whole set of categories if
the user switches to an application that is elegible for multiple
associated categories.

> I realise I'm being pretty negative here, and I feel bad because the
> interface looks so nice and elegant, but the corner cases seems to be
> so
> incredibly messy.

You're just asking the right questions.

> I could attach a screenshot of file-roller telling me
> it can be my default word processor if that helps. (I assume it's
> trying
> to claim that it can open the gzipped xml files used by various office
> components.) 

That's just a problem with the current category code which is really an
ugly hack. Ignore it for now.

More feedback + ideas, please! :)

-- 
Christian Neumair <chris gnome-de org>