Re: why kde and gnome's menu situation sucks
>>"Luke" == Luke Seubert <ls.maillist@verizon.net> writes:
Luke> On 10/24/2002 7:20 PM, Nick Leverton at nick@leverton.org wrote:
>> Why just make one decision when you can make two, though ? And
>> isn't it All About Choice[tm] anyway ? ;-)
>>
Luke> Yeah, except that too much choice is rough too. Does anyone
Luke> here believe that Debian's current menu structure, deeply
Luke> nested with beaucoup items because it seeks to make available
Luke> ALL apps is simple, elegant, and easy to use for Linux newbies?
Well, only as a matter of presentation. I do believe that
offering even newcomers the richness of choice that have drawn us to
Debian and free software in the first place is a good thing.
However, I can understand the need for simplicity, at least
initially, when one may tend to be overwhelmed by the choices.
But that state may not last as long as people are positing:
after the first few minutes on a new system, after I have things
working to a certain degree, I go out and explore: ok, this is the
web browser I am using now. What are the other options?
I am concerned that there is no effort being invested to help
this process of discovery; and so much effort is being spent on the
initial simplicity that there is no room for the transition that
comes from familiarity and exploration. The initial ease of use
would become a strait jacket. Unless the barrier to accessing more
complete menus is lowered.
Indeed, microsoft's collapsing of the menus seems a nice
approach -- you initially see only one web browser, but, expand the
initially hidden entries, and you see all the gory detail.
manoj
--
"One thing they don't tell you about doing experimental physics is
that sometimes you must work under adverse conditions... like a state
of sheer terror." Hartmann
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
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