Re: Bug#167297: ITP: gnome1 -- The GNU Network Object Model Environment (version 1)

[Steve Greenland <steveg@moregruel.net>]

On 01-Nov-02, 17:13 (CST), Nick Name <nick.name@inwind.it> wrote: 
> [gives a very good explanation of the differrence between viewports 
> and workspaces]

I'm going to throw your "terminology is important" phrase back at you,
because you are correct: terminology *is* important.

What you've missed is that features you've explained so well are not,
in fact, GNOME features. They are *window manager* features. Metacity
doesn't support viewports, and I think Havoc has said it won't. Sawfish
used to, as you note: I think that they haven't been removed, just
hidden because the sawfish maintainer has decided he'd rather support
some features well rather than a lot of features badly.

So, (IMO), rather than wasting time trying to re-animate dying,
abandoned technology, either figure out how to get viewports enabled
in sawfish again, or add GNOME2 support to a window manager that does
support viewports, Update applets or themes to GNOME2. I doubt that it
would actually be more work than trying to support GNOME1, and it would
be a hell of lot more useful to other people.

Or don't. It is, after all, your time to waste...

> The matter is that when somebody studies usability of a software, he
> always do this looking at the beginner user. The experienced user is
> always forgotten.

That's because people confuse "ease of use" with "ease of learning". The
unix command line is hard to learn, but easy to use and very productive
for a proficient person.

But I"ve gotten over my tweaky phase. I don't want to have to fine
tune 10 dozen options. I agree with the general approach of GNOME2 and
metacity -- make the right choice rather than give bad options. But
the GNOME2 people have said that the options aren't really going away,
they've just not yet made them easy to access, figuring that anybody who
cares enough will figure out gconf, or write the control center applet.

Steve


-- 
Steve Greenland

    The irony is that Bill Gates claims to be making a stable operating
    system and Linus Torvalds claims to be trying to take over the
    world.       -- seen on the net