[Desktop_architects] Printing dialog and GNOME

[Linus Torvalds]

On Wed, 21 Feb 2007, Thilo Pfennig wrote:
> 
> The problem I see is that users are just not acting like we expect.

I definitely agree.

And I think you hit one of the basic issues in:

> A desktop lies the base ground for every possible activity of a user - 
> so it can not act like an application like Inkscape or Jokosher that 
> focus on a specific user group.

Exactly.

A desktop (especially the window manager) ends up being not only very much 
in your face, but at the same time it's not something where you can really 
specialize all that much. There is no sane "niche" outside of some really 
odd usage schenarios (eg small-screen mobile, or very controlled kiosk 
mode etc). You need to support "everybody" within some definition of 
"everybody".

And it's not really a "choice". For example, I've obviously made it very 
clear that I tend to use KDE on all my machines, but the fact is, a lot 
of distributions end up coming with one or the other (or having support be 
very lopsided even when they come with both).

My daughters use gnome, for example - not because I think it's "simpler" 
(they older one has been able to mess up the desktop and side-bars so much 
that anybody who claims that gnome is "uncluttered" and "simple" has 
obviously never seen the chaos that passed for my daughter).

They use gnome because I don't actually _use_ their machines, but I 
maintain them, and since I was running on ppc64 and wanted a common 
distro for all my machines, the simplest choice was Fedora Core. Which 
doesn't even install KDE by default, I think (but even if it does: the 
default WM environment is gnome, so if you just show your kids how to use 
it, that's what they have).

> To get more practical I think the user should be able to select his
> experience level and preferences and then get the interface he likes best
> (also should have the opportunity to switch later).

I would _heartily_ agree with that. To get back to my daughters - the one 
who messed up her desktop is perfectly able to make her wall-papers be 
some disgustingly cute thing that has a hot-pink-on-pink theme or 
whatever, but she is also perfectly able to mess up the menu bar. I think 
she has about ten copies of the Gnome "xeyes" applet, and she ended up 
with TWO gnome menu entries.

Would it be a bad idea to have a mode where you can't even do silly things 
like that by mistake? Keep the core menu entry fixed, for example? No 
doubt. When it comes to making a mess of it, my daughter is better at 
_creating_ the mess than she is at straightening the end result out.

But does that mean that you shouldn't be able to configure things if you 
want? Hell no. It just means that _different_ users have different views 
of what "confusing" and "configurability" means.

A lot of users will findthings confusing whether they really are or not: 
the problem really isn't necessarily in the desktop, but "between the 
keyboard and the chair". So trying to minimize confusion is just a dead 
end: you simply *cannot* do it. People will be confused by things that 
others take for granted as a "must have".

Just live with it.

And yes, I suspect a lot of people are like my kids - their machines are 
really maintained by somebody else. People who are afraid of confusing "my 
dear old Mum" may be in that exact situation: dear old Mum *really* isn't 
interested in configurability, because some people just want a web browser 
and an email client. Not having the configurability be visible can be a 
good idea.

But that doesn't mean that hard-core people want to edit some windows 
registry-like text-only nightmare either (hey, I'm hardcore, but there's 
no way I want to look up config entry names with google just to figure out 
how to get "focus-follows-mouse" - I want the nice graphical thing, thank 
you very much). But yes, maybe you want to hide that one from dear old 
Mum, who really learnt to click her windows, and would be deathly afraid 
of any question she doesn't even understand.

And yes, it doesn't have to be a "expert options" thing. Maybe it's a 
hardcoded setup that you actually have to choose in the GDM login panel: 
kind of like the session switcher. I'd be perfectly happy to do a big 
thing like that - and yet it would already be technical enough that I 
doubt the normal kind of "what happens if I go into the expert menu" kind 
of person would do it.

In fact, the *best* option is to probably make the "non-expert" mode not 
just hide the configuration tool entries, but actually *not*even*honor* 
them. Why? Because then, if you screw up, you just log in to the "basic 
window manager", and the expert config entries you screwed up while you 
tested "expert mode" simply don't take effect.

So even if somebody thinks he is an expert, if it gets scary, they just 
downgrade, and the messed-up "expert choices" simply become null and void.

But thinking that "users get confused" is a reason to make it hard for 
users that do NOT get confused is just horrible. People differ. It's 
really that simple.

			Linus