[ubuntu-art] Intuitive application lister and other loopy discussions (was Re: next meeting)

[Dylan McCall]

The problem with "the Windows way" is that there is a complete lack of
consistency in that environment. Learning a new application is a complex
task since they all behave differently. As an example, there is the question
of whether it places itself in the notification area! Really, "programs"
should not place themselves there. The notification area exists for programs
to present information about notable happenings. That Rhythmbox is running
is by no means a notable happening. The notification area's purpose has been
extended to serving as a home for programs which always run in the
background like NetworkManager, and I for one consider that acceptable.
NetworkManager isn't just placing a link to itself there; its entire user
interface resides in that notification area icon. Besides, one's network
status most definitely is a notification, just as the fact that printing or
bluetooth is enabled. A nice thing to note with the programs that do belong
there is that they do not have Quit options in their context menus, because
they really are core functions of the operating system. I think that is a
good rule of thumb. (Then again, I am not a fan of the Quit option anywhere
since programs should scale down and quit automatically, but that's another
discussion).


GNOME gets routinely bashed for trimming features and having applications
with few options, but that is really not the aim of an interface like this.
The idea is to create an environment where the options people expect of
programs they use do not need to be rediscovered for every program. The XDG
user directories standard plays a nice part there. As an unusual example,
there is currently a problem where every single program is implementing its
own download limiter. In each case, the user must hunt through the program's
preferences and change the download speed limit. That is not intuitive! A
better approach would be for every GNOME application to completely kill that
option and stop caring about download limits.

...Yep, I just suggested that a function everyone uses is killed. The next
step would be to add network shaping as a function of NetworkManager. "Bah!
GNOME puilling more options!" the community would respond. That would most
definitely be the intent here! Sure, programs have a lot of "options" in
Windows or KDE. That is definitely not a good thing, though. The problem
with those enormous options dialogs is that everybody must face them. There
is a ton of duplication in these environments. That huge list of options?
It's really just a hindrance; any conventional user will be very annoyed
that he has to tell the computer the same thing twice, even if that is being
said to different programs.

At fault there is not the individual programs (yet) but the desktop
environment for failing to do its job of creating consistency. Consistency
means an easily learned desktop where standard, expected functions are
always in the same place rather than pushed over to one of "Options",
"Preferences", "Current Profile" or "Settings" for fifteen different
applications.


Back to the application lister idea...
One reason people like MacOS is because it theoretically delivers in the
intuitive, predictable programs front. Any program worth its salt has
preferences under its bold lettered name in the menu bar, for example.
Mostly, though, MacOS's consistency comes from the fact that its most
popular applications are all developed by the same company. Of course those
ones would interact smoothly! With desktop Linux we are really pushing new
ground in the consistency department, where both Apple and Microsoft fear to
tread -- instead, those two behemoths see fit to simply integrate their own
built in programs and hope that nobody tries differently.
Still, Apple does succeed (properly or not) in creating a desktop experience
where the user does not need to repeat himself.
The application lister is one way to create consistency in user interface.
People do not expect or want applications to spread themselves over the
notification area. That would be bad because the notification area does not
sort the applications (or link them to their windows), because the
notification area was not designed for this purpose and does not provide the
correct functions to make it useful for it. It is very confusing when only
the occasional program will provide an icon representing itself as a whole.
The Application List idea gives that functionality to every program, thus
ensuring complete consistency and allowing people to expect the intuitive
functions it provides.
Intuitive features?
Why, that would be ideas such as that processes are running no matter what
workspace you are looking at. At the moment, if I want to open a new window
for the web browser I am running, I have two choices: Find an open window of
said web browser, or find its launcher. Both are stupid. Why would the
function of opening a new window be available only within an open window?
Furthermore, what does opening a new window have to do with "File"s? My
favourite thing with MacOS's unified menu bar is how it does away with the
absurd items generally expected under the File menu (which is really just
the menu for every function that doesn't quite fit in the existing stock
titles). It makes a lot more sense to see the button for the application in
the panel, right click it and choose New Window.
It also makes sure that programs stop parking themselves in the notification
area, which would be quite nice.


Bye,
-Dylan


On Sun, Feb 10, 2008 at 6:10 AM, Álvaro Medina Ballester <
xlasttrainhomex at gmail.com> wrote:

> El 10/02/2008, a las 14:45, Jan Niklas Hasse escribió:
>
> > Anyway, instead of showing me the real names of the apps, do you
> > have any _solid_ opinion or any critic point to my idea?
> >
> > Your idea is that applications are still running when i close their
> > window? And that they will appear in an app selector? Well, the idea
> > is not bad, but the tray does this already. When i close my app i
> > can reopen it by clicking the tray icon. My critic point is: Instead
> > of developing an app selector, we should drop the idea of the tray
> > as a notification area and improve it instead.
> >
> > I mean, music apps go to "tray" in Linux... and what? I was saying
> > that in my opinion this is not the right place to keep open apps.
> >
> > Why? I think it's a good place because a small icon doesn't take
> > much place and i can perform actions like changing settings in the
> > context menu of the icon.
>
> I'm glad to hear your opinion!
>
> Well, we have some points in common. We believe that the "pipe" I
> described is a good way to manage applications and windows, but we're
> not agree in one thing, where those open apps should be represented on
> the desktop.
>
> I far prefer not putting open apps in the system tray because I think
> that the tray should be used for things that are always open (clock,
> volume manager or volume applet, network manager, etc.). So I think
> that we're mixing two things in the same place.
>
> In addition, I think that putting a lot of small icons would not be
> the best way to manage the open apps because those apps are the main
> use of the desktop. For example, when I'm doing some university stuff
> I have scribes open and the terminal to do gcc's and make's, so I
> think that the best way to manage those open apps is keeping them
> separately from another things like clock applet that you're not using
> constantly. And if you have bigger icons that makes easier to
> distinguish what do you want to select.
>
> Changing the settings in the context menu of the icon is a very good
> idea. That can be implemented also in an app selector. This is what I
> like to call the power of simplicity.
>
> When I said that about Windows culture I didn't explained myself very
> well. In my university, some software engineering teachers (not some,
> all) believe that Windows way to do things with the computer is the
> good one just because "everybody uses it", they don't know another
> ways to work with the desktop and so they've learned to work in a
> Windows way so if they have another better options they don't consider
> them because they have learned Windows way and they don't want to
> think further.
>
> I remember discussing how bad is Windows external devices manager with
> my teacher. If you plug 3 or 4 devices you can't know which is the usb
> pen, which is the media player, etc. But in gnome's desktop, every
> device is on the desktop so you can manage them very easily. My
> teacher still believes that Windows does that better. I think that
> this is what we need to avoid.
>
> Thank you for considering my ideas again.
>
>
> Cheers.
> --
> ubuntu-art mailing list
> ubuntu-art at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-art
>
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