Re: [desktop] why kde and gnome's menu situation sucks
On Wed, Oct 23, 2002 at 09:16:52AM -0400, Luke Seubert <ls.maillist@verizon.net> was heard to say:
> If simplicity is the goal, then Debian Desktop is going to have to select a
> set of choices in the menu which will mean making choices for users -
> period. Invariably, those choices are going to irritate some users.
> Happily, the power users will be able to easily override Debian Desktop's
> default selections and use something of their own. Meanwhile, Debian
> Desktop has to be careful in choosing the default menu hierarchy, so that
> newbies are best served.
That's true, but it's useful to have a semi-exhaustive list of the
interactive programs on your computer available. I think every program
should supply menu information (as today), and groups that want to make
certain software not available (in the menu) by default can install
override information.
Either that or we could do something like debconf's priority levels.
(generate wm menus at priority "High" or "Desktop" by default. Maybe,
eg, a personal menu customizer GUI could access the full list)
> Remember, the motto of DD is "Software Which Just Works". Right out of the
> box - no fiddling and no fuss - it just works. Heh - a somewhat radical
> idea for Debian ;-)
Somewhat radical how? What you stated above is exactly why I started
using Debian in the first place [0] -- it's just never been applied well to
the installer or to X. [1]
Daniel
[0] as an aside: having everything appear in the menu was one thing
which "Just Worked". Before you jump on that -- when I started using
this, "everything in the menu" meant a much leaner menu than I have
today.
Some of the problems now are due IMO to the fact that things which
used to simplify the system in 1998-1999 have become unwieldly in
Debian today. (another example is dselect, which isn't "too bad" when
you only have about 1,000 (?) packages)
[1] The core X packages have gotten pretty good today, but font
configuration even confuses me from time to time!
(The prohibition on depending on font packages is unfortunate, since
it means people often end up with a bad combination of fonts or
missing fonts for particular programs -- I assume the desktop people
will try to ensure that users have a sensible set of fonts by default)
--
/-------------------- Daniel Burrows <dburrows@debian.org> -------------------\
| Exhilaration is that feeling you get just |
| after a great idea hits you, and just before |
| you realize what is wrong with it. |
\---------------------- A duck! -- http://www.python.org ---------------------/
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