Re: [Usability] [Ayatana] The Future of Window Borders, Menu Bars, and More

[Martin Owens <doctormo gmail com>]

On Thu, 2010-07-29 at 18:28 +0800, Allan Caeg wrote:
> Conventions in Windows and OS X are evolving (see the ribbon interface
> and app buttons on Office, Paint, etc.) while the Linux desktop is
> limited (probably) because we can't make new things work everywhere
> (different window managers, desktop environments, etc.).

I think it's more important to have standards in data format and
communication, than to have standards in interfaces across competing
products. Internal design consistency is very important and that can
only really be achieved with standards.

Insisting on a left aligned set of window buttons is something you can
only do within a distro, it's hard to enforce that sort of thing on your
collaborators, let alone your competitors. So it's best not to
standardise the look and feel of the product when it's pretty much the
one feature that separates various products in the market.

Applications should tell the desktop what they mean, not what they want.

I think things like the windicators and the indicators are going in the
right direction, but communication is only very slowly getting better. I
remember the almost flaming row I had with DX-Gould at UDS-J about
removing the indicators. The impression I got was not what the results
have turned into and I would have been quite happy to accept the current
design had it been possible to explain at the time.

Martin,