planet gnome comment

[Magnus Therning]

On Wed, Aug 31, 2005 at 11:46:35PM -0300, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
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>On 29 Aug, 2005, at 8:50 PM, josuealcalde wrote:
>>I think the default option should be the most used option by Ubuntu
>>users. Of course, I don't know how to know such a thing.
>
>Personally, I think the default should be the option most
>understandable to those who don't have the skills, confidence, or time
>to configure their file manager at all. That's not going to happen for
>Breezy, but I'm delighted Breezy's Nautilus is going to be much better
>than Hoary's.

I agree whole-heartedly. The defaults should make sense.

It's hard to get a good balance between copy-what-other-systems-do and
our-way-is-better. Familiarity seems to weigh in strongly in GUIs, which
would imply copying from M$Win (even the bad things sometimes). I
wouldn't mind seeing more copying from Apple though, since they seem to
have a more profound understanding of GUIs than most companies.

Also, don't forget that something that is superior in UI isn't always
intuitive, and it sometimes requires investing time and effort in
"changing your ways".

>>Perhaps, Ubuntu needs an "one-time-configuration-tool" which would
>>pop-up in the first user session and will adjust this kind of things.
>>(KDE has something similar, hasn't it?)
>
>That wouldn't be consistent with Ubuntu's usual behavior of choosing
>good defaults and then getting out of your way. Nautilus's browser mode
>is a good default for people already using Linux, because for those
>people, the delay caused by orienting themselves in folders that all
>appear in exactly the same size and position is likely to be less than
>the delay caused by closing multiple windows when they've finished.

Not only that, but a configuration tool that pops up the first time is
intimidating ("look how many things I need to configure before I can
even start using Linux!"). I also don't think it's good to do simply
because configuring your system needs some basic understanding (i.e. you
should understand the implications of choosing one option over another)
and that understanding isn't there the first time you boot.

Reasonable defaults, trying to anticipate what new users can grasp or
are used to from other systems and EASY access to changing settings (no,
editing options in GConf isn't acceptable) is the road I'd like to see
taken. Nubies will become experienced users at some time (otherwise
Ubuntu isn't a success) and that transition should be supported by the
system.

/M

-- 
Magnus Therning                    (OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4)
magnus at therning.org
http://therning.org/magnus

Software is not manufactured, it is something you write and publish.
Keep Europe free from software patents, we do not want censorship
by patent law on written works.

Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for ;-)
     -- Seen somewhere on the net
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