Re: Brief descriptions in menu entries
On Sunday, Oct 26, 2003, at 16:03 America/Denver, Ben Burton wrote:
I'd suggest a new menu field such as "genericname" (to be consistent
with GNOME and KDE desktop files which use the same field for the same
purpose).
<snip>
IHMO this is an important usability step for new users frightened by
the
large amount of unfamiliar software that gets installed on their
systems.
I know Linux has a nasty reputation (mostly deserved) for usability
problems and such, but this is going too far the other way. Windows
users don't freak out because Internet Explorer doesn't say "Web
Browser" in its menu entry, nor that "Outlook" doesn't mention "virus
propogator^W^WEmail" in its.
I see two main situations in re new users:
1) Has a default installation.
This won't have more than a couple of web browsers, I don't think.
2) Has someone else running their system, who's installed a bunch of
web browsers.
In this case, they can just ask what to use.
I think this is a better situation than having:
Applications -> Internet -> Web Browser (Galeon)
Web Browser (Konqueror)
Web Browser (Mozilla)
Web Browser (Mozilla Firebird)
Web Browser (blah)
What you're doing with that, in essence, is defining a third layer of
menu, with all the added complexity that entails, with the added
obnoxiousness of repeating the prefix for each one, making the list
harder to scan.
Let's do our new users a favour and not make their lives harder. They
already have GNOME and KDE menus if they want to use them (I'd argue
against even that complexity, but it's there, so nevermind). We don't
need to repeat that info everywhere.
-=Eric
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