Re: adding desktop files to misc packages
* Josselin Mouette <joss@debian.org> [070725 12:57]:
> Le mercredi 25 juillet 2007 à 08:54 -0400, Marvin Renich a écrit :
> > Gnome and KDE are targeted primarily at desktop users, not servers. If,
> > as a desktop user, I install a graphical app on my machine, I *expect*
> > to see that app in the main menu. The place where I put important
> > and/or frequently used apps is on a panel/toolbar.
>
> Do you expect to see console applications in the menu as well? All
> interpreters and shells? Window managers?
My original message was specifically concerned with graphical apps. I'm
not sure which console apps should be displayed; for the most part, I
think the Debian maintainer should decide whether it deserves to be
displayed by default.
Window managers *definitely* should be displayed. If I went to the
trouble of installing sawfish in addition to metacity, I would like to
be able to use both. Yes, from the menu.
> > If a novice user installs an app and then goes to the menu and doesn't
> > find it, how is this user supposed to know what to do?
>
> This bit is correct: someone installing an app can reasonably expect to
> see it in the menu. However you are drawing wrong conclusions:
>
> > This is
> > completely *un*usable. The more novice the user, the more important it
> > is for the *default* to be for all graphical apps to be shown. Then let
> > the individual user decide which ones are important to him/her.
>
> If the users installs the distribution with default settings or starts a
> session on a multi-user setup, he should find a usable menu, not a menu
> with all possible applications he never wanted to install.
Usable, yes; minimal, no. See the next paragraph:
> > Menus, by their nature, are inherently unusable for the most frequently
> > used apps, and we should not be trying to make them more usable at the
> > expense of making less frequently used apps harder to access.
>
> Why shouldn't we attempt to make menus usable?
I didn't say we should not make them usable, I said we should not try to
make them more usable *by reducing access to less frequently used apps*.
> > Menus make less frequently used apps easy to get at, while toolbars make
> > frequently used apps even easier; use the right tool for the right job.
>
> Guess what, toolbars are not used by a good share of users. Toolbars
> sound obvious for experienced users, but a novice will never have the
> idea to modify the interface that is shown to him; which is why this
> interface must be as straightforward as possible - and that also
> includes good default shortcuts in the toolbar.
That a novice will not know that he can change the interface is even
more reason to make sure the (graphical) app that he installed is in the
menu. A good system of hints that includes one about putting
applications on the toolbar would be very helpful.
Also, my experience is that a good share of less-technically-oriented-
but-comfortable-using-a-computer users actually do use toolbars.
Josselin, we have not met face-to-face, and email does not convey
emotion very well, so I want to make sure you know that this is not a
personal attack. Your contribution to Debian is significant, and I
appreciate it (along with that of the many other DD's). I respect the
technical opinions that you have expressed on the debian mailing lists,
and agree with many of them. But I strongly disagree with you on this
issue.
...Marvin
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