On Wed, 2003-11-19 at 23:21, Jaap A. Haitsma wrote:

Hi,

I have some comments/suggestions about the current gnome desktop in Fedora. (Feel free to burn the comments/suggestions in flames ;-) )

• I find the standard gnome panel at the bottom of the screen very

clunky, because it fills up a large part of the screen. (I know I can auto hide it or make it smaller.) I find smaller panel (or 2 panels) like they use in ximian desktop See: http://www.ximian.com/images/screenshots/desktop/browsing-windows-network.pn... looking much more modern

The two panels use exactly the same total amount of screen space, but I agree that buttons on a larger panel use more space. However, its also harder to hit the smaller buttons for people with less control and/or eyesight, for instance older people.

• I find the menus Preferences, System Settings and System tools quite

confusing. They contain many similar menu items and if you would make a quiz show in which of the three a certain setting should be set, I think the average user would not do that well. I'd like to suggest to have one "Configuration" (or whatever what you want to call it) menu, where you have two sections: user preferences (which sets options for the current user that is logged in) and system preferences (for setting system wide settings for which you need to be or become root)

Does this help much though? There are still two menus that you have to look in, and if you didn't know how to find something in the current system, how would you know in the new? All it does is add depth to the menu, making it harder to navigate.

I guess for experienced linux users you'd *know* which settings need root and which do not (because you know what underlying operations the config tools do), but e.g. the difference between the XRandR gnome tool that lets you change resolution without root and redhat-config-xfree which needs root access is not at all obvious to unexperienced users. Also, I don't see how system tools fits into the config category.

At the core there are three types of configuration tools: 1) Changes that affect only the current user 2) Changes that configure the current machine (X config, network, soundcard, etc) 3) Configuration of system services that aren't user things, nor really machine specific (apache server config, dns server config, database config, etc)

And even in category 1 there are two types of configurations, those that are real "preferences", i.e. what the user prefers in the user interface, but that don't affect the app working or not (colors, theme, ui organization, etc) and "settings", things that must be set correctly to make the software work (imap server address, http proxy address, etc).

The user/root split is mostly a 1 vs 2+3 split, although not perfect, but mixing services such as apache with network settings probably don't make things easier to find/understand.

Getting a good organization for this is extremely hard. Much of the problem is due to the fact that there just are so many settings, and unfortunately many of them are pretty useless for the user. I mean, much of the stuff of type 2 should *just work*, and need little or no configuration. Getting as much of this working *without* config tools is the long term goal. However, at the moment we just have to do our best to try to organize the tools we have in the menus.

Its important to notice that having fewer config tools is important even for experienced users, these users have no problem understanding what the config tools do, but they still have problems finding the right tool if there are too many different tools. Getting rid of unnecessary settings increses efficiency for everyone.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Alexander Larsson Red Hat, Inc alexl@redhat.com alla@lysator.liu.se He's a gun-slinging albino hairdresser on the edge. She's a hard-bitten junkie bounty hunter in the wrong place at the wrong time. They fight crime!

Greetings to all-

On Wed, 2003-11-19 at 17:21, Jaap A. Haitsma wrote:

• I find the standard gnome panel at the bottom of the screen very

clunky, because it fills up a large part of the screen. (I know I can auto hide it or make it smaller.) I find smaller panel (or 2 panels) like they use in ximian desktop See: http://www.ximian.com/images/screenshots/desktop/browsing-windows-network.pn... looking much more modern

I agree the Ximian desktop looks nice. Still- guessing how users will set up their desktop is hit or miss. Mine ends up looking nothing like Fedora or Ximian. If anything, I believe the targeted audience should be new converts to Linux in general, who will be looking for some familiarity. So keeping a Windows or Mac type feel helps give the uninitiated user clues about what is where. Right now Fedora leans toward a Windows look, IMO. Which is likely where you will see the most converts coming from. It's clean, simple and straightforward. I put my 11 year old daughter in front of it- and she went right to work.

Maybe what would be helpful is some simple tutorials linked from a fresh desktop that show the user how to change things. Teach them to customize their desktop, and how it looks to start off with is almost irrelevant.

• I find the menus Preferences, System Settings and System tools quite

confusing. They contain many similar menu items and if you would make a quiz show in which of the three a certain setting should be set, I think the average user would not do that well. I'd like to suggest to have one "Configuration" (or whatever what you want to call it) menu, where you have two sections: user preferences (which sets options for the current user that is logged in) and system preferences (for setting system wide settings for which you need to be or become root)

I agree with you here. Every distro I've seen has fairly cluttered menus. The sheer number of apps available is staggering. I prefer the stock Gnome menu myself- it's rather straightforward. I'd advocate removing as much as possible from the menus, and where possible simplifying the categories. Again- targeting the convert, not the experienced user.

Jon Parkton, NC, USA