Re: [desktop] why kde and gnome's menu situation sucks
On 10/24/2002 1:56 PM, Marek Habersack at grendel@debian.org wrote:
> Because nobody proposed to name the entries like Editor(1), Editor(2). There
> were at least 2 or 3 reasonable solutions proposed. Obviously a label like
> 'Web Browser' should be used only when there's only one web browser
> installed.
>
Sort of. If you are going to have four or more similar apps, I see them
going into their own submenu with proper names.
But if you have, say, only two IRC clients - I could see both labeling them
and naming them, even though the double labels would be a bit repetitious
and clunky.
Hmmm, that's another scenario that will require some hard thought.
> They say they have one choice in their menu. We know at once that they're
> using the basic desktop, ergo we know what their choice is... Also a big,
> fat Report A Bug icon on the desktop might come very helpful - it would ask
> them a few questions in the wizard-like way, then post the bug report to the
> tech support mailing lists with all the details necessary without the user
> having to know how to find the details. For example: they have a problem
> with their Menu, so they click on the bug report icon and are presented with
> a question "which element of the Debian UI is giving you trouble?" and a
> selection "Menu, Editor, Browser" etc. They select that category and move on
> - if they chose Menu, they are presented with a fake menu identical to that
> in their panel and are asked to select which item is giving them trouble.
> When the program knows which menu the user has trouble with, it simply
> includes all the details for that menu and sends that to the list. That's of
> course an ad-hoc idea, but I guess it might be something worth pursuing.
>
I think it is quite a good idea. Help the newbie help Debian by making bug
reporting a breeze. But let's also make it easy for the newbie to get help
via mailing list, IRC, web FAQ, etc. - just in case the bug is located
between the ears ;-)
> I think you might be right to some extent, but I do hope that people to make
> those decisions on behalf of Debian will apply the only tactics possible -
> they will be as little biased as possible. It is possible to make the
> choices based on polls, personal experience, technical merits, the number of
> bug reports :) - anything. I suppose you're right saying that it will take a
> great deal of careful social engineering, but I do believe it's both
> worthwhile and necessary.
>
Agreed. And let's keep the decision process as open as possible. Just
allowing people to blow off a little steam about some default choice that
don't care for is often enough to later win their acceptance. Allowing
folks to vent can actually be a healthy social process in achieving rough
consensus later on.
Cheers,
Luke Seubert
Reply to: