Indiana desktop UI spec - early draft

How about putting it on top-panel?
Every day I'll use it and it's more convenient if I can see
it on the
panel.

Jeff

On Thu, 2008-03-13 at 09:16 -0500, Shawn Walker wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 9:05 AM, Jeff Cai
<Jeff.Caisun.com> wrote:
> > I'm wondering if we can put
"gnome-terminal" on the desktop. Currently
> >  on Solaris, I launch "gnome-terminal"
in the right-click pop-up menu. on
> >  Ubuntu, I have to create a short-cut in desktop
for it which makes
> >  annoying.
> 
> I'd rather see the "Open Terminal" put back
on the context menu personally 
> 

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On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 9:27 AM, Jeff Cai <Jeff.Caisun.com> wrote:
> How about putting it on top-panel?
>  Every day I'll use it and it's more convenient if I
can see it on the
>  panel.

I've done that as well for all my GNOME installs.

I still like the context menu though 

-- 
Shawn Walker, Software and Systems Analyst
http://binarycrus
ader.blogspot.com/

"To err is human -- and to blame it on a computer is
even more so." -
Robert Orben
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Wow... more feedback than I was expecting, so I'm just going
to go
through and quickly reply to them individually at this
stage, before we
draw breath and figure out how best to attack the second
draft...


On Wed, 2008-03-12 at 13:08 -0400, Sebastien Roy wrote:
> Hi Calum,
> 
> Calum Benson wrote:
> > We're starting to document what the default
desktop configuration for  
> > the Indiana 1.0 release should be, and naturally
we'd like your  
> > feedback.
> > 
> > http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/d
esktop/uispecs/indiana-uispec/
> > 
> > Right now it only covers panel and menu layout;
more sections will be  
> > added over the next couple of days.  However, I'm
sure there's plenty  
> > for you to get your teeth into already, e.g.:
> 
> Some quick observation.  Is there a reason why the
launchers are 
> directly on the top panel as opposed to placing a
"Launchers List" 
> applet on the panel?  

First of all, I should say that the 'reason' for many of the
things in
the draft spec is simply that it's the current default,
either in
community GNOME or Indiana Preview 2.  I fully expect the
spec to change
quite rapidly in response to everyone's feedback, and
presenting
more-or-less the status quo seemed like the quickest way to
solicit
it... so far, it seems to have worked 

> I've found the "Launchers List" applet to be
quite 
> helpful in helping to keep the launchers organized and
spaced out evenly.

I don't have any strong feeling about whether the launchers
should go in
the applet or not.  I seem to remember we had some issues
with the Quick
Launch applet a couple of years back that made it the less
appealing
solution, but I forget what they were.  I'll have to check
back and see
if they're still valid.

> Regarding 1 panel or 2, I find that 2, always
visible" panels makes the 
> screen look too busy and takes too much screen
real-estate.  If one of 
> them automatically retracts, then that problem goes
away somewhat.

True.  I'm fairly sure I've seen studies in the past that
show that most
people prefer static to auto-hiding panels, though (although
that was
probably on Windows or MacOS rather than GNOME), and
obviously we ought
to pick the default that suits most people, and make it easy
to change
for the others.  (I'll see if I can dig up those studies
again).

> I also don't see the point in cluttering panels with
needless menus if 
> they're already available through the
"Launch" menu.

I agree, but currently we don't have the 'Launch' menu on
the panel in
Indiana... so we need to decide which to go with. (One
advantage of the
Apps/Places/Systems menus is that broader and shallower menu
systems
are, generally, easier to navigate than narrow and deep
ones.)

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems
Ireland
mailto:calum.bensonsun.com            GNOME Desktop Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum
             +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun
Microsystems

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On Wed, 2008-03-12 at 19:09 +0100, Mark Phalan wrote:

> Why is thunderbird given higher visibility (by being in
the panel) over
> evolution - the default gnome mail app?

Basically, this is a hangover from JDS in Solaris-- based on
whatever
factors they were looking at, product marketing decided that
Thunderbird
was going to be the default mail client in JDS.

There's no reason AFAIK that we have to do the same in
Indiana, and
speaking as a long-time Evolution user I'd personally be
more than happy
to make Thunderbird an optional download 

> Why do we ship two mail clients which cover basically
the same
> functionality? I'd draw the parallel here between
epiphany - the default
> gnome web browser and firefox.

Point taken, although to be honest, pretty much all the
major Linux
distros prefer Firefox to Epiphany as their primary browser
too.

I'd be very happy to see Epiphany available one way or
another, as it's
a slick little browser. IIRC we had a few nasty problems
trying to build
it on OpenSolaris the last time we tried, though (possibly
due to its
recent switch to WebKit... I don't remember, though).

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems
Ireland
mailto:calum.bensonsun.com            GNOME Desktop Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum
             +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun
Microsystems

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On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 9:54 AM, Calum Benson
<Calum.Bensonsun.com> wrote:
>  On Wed, 2008-03-12 at 13:08 -0400, Sebastien Roy
wrote:
>  > I also don't see the point in cluttering panels
with needless menus if
>  > they're already available through the
"Launch" menu.
>
>  I agree, but currently we don't have the 'Launch' menu
on the panel in
>  Indiana... so we need to decide which to go with. (One
advantage of the
>  Apps/Places/Systems menus is that broader and
shallower menu systems
>  are, generally, easier to navigate than narrow and
deep ones.)

I too was initially thrown off when I first saw the
"shallow menus" in
GNOME when I used Ubuntu.

After I got used to it though, I loved it!

I personally am in favour of keeping the Apps, Places,
System menus as
I think they are great for easy navigation.

It's so much better than having one large menu and having to
dig
through it for commonly used things.

-- 
Shawn Walker, Software and Systems Analyst
http://binarycrus
ader.blogspot.com/

"To err is human -- and to blame it on a computer is
even more so." -
Robert Orben
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On Wed, 2008-03-12 at 12:11 -0700, Dale Sears wrote:
> Downloads folder on the desktop?

No reason why not, although I don't think GNOME yet has a
concept of a
downloads folder as such, so we'd be rolling our own
solution.  And that
can always backfire if the community don't take our patches
back
upstream.

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems
Ireland
mailto:calum.bensonsun.com            GNOME Desktop Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum
             +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun
Microsystems

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On Wed, 2008-03-12 at 12:20 -0700, Dale Sears wrote:
> Xfce desktop?
> 
> It's really nice on Sun Ray servers.  In my experience,
it was
> a significant boost in performance which all of my
users noticed
> and appreciated.  That was a while ago, and I only had
about 8
> users on a V240...  but still, it was nice.  

I have no objection to that, but I'm going to declare it
outside the
scope of this discussion... consider the spec to be for the
default
*GNOME* desktop configuration, any other desktop
environments we decide
to ship can work out their own specs 

Cheeri,
Calum.


> 
> Calum Benson wrote:
> > We're starting to document what the default
desktop configuration for  
> > the Indiana 1.0 release should be, and naturally
we'd like your  
> > feedback.
> > 
> > http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/d
esktop/uispecs/indiana-uispec/
> > 
> > Right now it only covers panel and menu layout;
more sections will be  
> > added over the next couple of days.  However, I'm
sure there's plenty  
> > for you to get your teeth into already, e.g.:
> > 
> > - One panel or two?
> > - Launch menu or Apps/Places/System menu?
> > - What applets/launchers on panels by default?
> > - Icons (e.g. Home folder) on the desktop by
default, or empty desktop  
> > by default?
> > - GNOME or KD... no, let's not get into that one

> > 
> > Fire away...
> > 
> > Cheeri,
> > Calum.
> > 
-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems
Ireland
mailto:calum.bensonsun.com            GNOME Desktop Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum
             +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun
Microsystems

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On Thu, 2008-03-13 at 15:12 +0000, Calum Benson wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-03-12 at 19:09 +0100, Mark Phalan wrote:
> 
> > Why is thunderbird given higher visibility (by
being in the panel) over
> > evolution - the default gnome mail app?
> 
> Basically, this is a hangover from JDS in Solaris--
based on whatever
> factors they were looking at, product marketing decided
that Thunderbird
> was going to be the default mail client in JDS.
> 
> There's no reason AFAIK that we have to do the same in
Indiana, and
> speaking as a long-time Evolution user I'd personally
be more than happy
> to make Thunderbird an optional download 

Me too  

> 
> > Why do we ship two mail clients which cover
basically the same
> > functionality? I'd draw the parallel here between
epiphany - the default
> > gnome web browser and firefox.
> 
> Point taken, although to be honest, pretty much all the
major Linux
> distros prefer Firefox to Epiphany as their primary
browser too.
> 
> I'd be very happy to see Epiphany available one way or
another, as it's
> a slick little browser. IIRC we had a few nasty
problems trying to build
> it on OpenSolaris the last time we tried, though
(possibly due to its
> recent switch to WebKit... I don't remember, though).

I'd love to see epiphany (using webkit) available as well.
Its probably
not ready to replace firefox but as an option in the
repository it would
be great.

-Mark

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On Wed, 2008-03-12 at 12:18 -0700, Glenn Lagasse wrote:

> Except:
> 
> a) Thunderbird is more widely available on other
platforms (windows/OS
> X) and so I would say it's got a far greater
following.

("More widely installed", perhaps, but Evolution
works fine on both
Windows and OS X as well.)

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems
Ireland
mailto:calum.bensonsun.com            GNOME Desktop Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum
             +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun
Microsystems

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On Wed, 2008-03-12 at 15:28 -0400, Sebastien Roy wrote:

> Speaking for myself only, I used Evolution for years on
Solaris, and I 
> dropped it in favor Thunderbird due to stability
issues.  Evolution was 
> at the time simply too slow (I have a huge number of
nested IMAP folders 
> with a huge number of messages)

So do I, and haven't seen any such problems for a very long
time, FWIW.

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems
Ireland
mailto:calum.bensonsun.com            GNOME Desktop Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum
             +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun
Microsystems

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