unity-design team mailing list archive

[Lance <lbsolost@xxxxxxxxx>]

I needed to do some unrelated work with the Lucid Live CD this AM and just decided to test the "timeout" during which you can press any key to display the language selection menu and boot options.

It fails at 5 seconds and also at 4 seconds, but it succeeds at 3 seconds. Does that seem correct? Or perhaps the graphic is displaying late with my Intel i945?

3 seconds is not long to think, "hmmm - what are these emblems, what should I do". I'll grant you that knowing the behavior is in itself a solution, simply pay very close attention, but is that truly desirable behavior?

If I'd forgotten to thank you previously, please accept my thanks for at least listening to me. Regardless of the outcome it's great to know that anyone can express concerns regarding Ubuntu.

--- On Wed, 5/26/10, Lance <lbsolost@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

From: Lance <lbsolost@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Ayatana] Fw: Re: Rethink the noninteractive Live CD default boot?
To: "Mark Shuttleworth" <mark.shuttleworth@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: michael.forrest@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, ayatana@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wednesday, May 26, 2010, 11:01 AM

Something I failed to mention here is the matter of the "time-out" allowed for the user to press any key to display the language selector and boot options. I wonder if Michael Forrest or someone can tell me what the actual length of that time is?

Gosh, it seems quick. Like even a momentary distraction can cause me to miss the opportunity even if I know that I need to press any key. I'm guessing 3 to 5 seconds?

Just for fun I refreshed my memory by booting a Karmic CD and you of course get a 30 second timer displaying so you can think, "uh .......... what was I doing" ;^/

Then I booted a Lucid CD and hit a key to display the boot options and there is no timeout displayed, so I assume it would sit there forever?

So, while I originally thought increasing that "timeout" would be a bad idea, maybe I was wrong? What do you
 think?

Should the "timeout" be at least 10 seconds? Or longer? Or is my perception of time simply poor?

It's quite possible that it's "just me", I'm old and legally blind, but it would be good to know what the actual "timeout" is.

Maybe just increasing that timeout slightly and improving the appearance of the "emblems" (with or without adding text in English) would be a simple and viable solution?

Please consider this just "thinking out loud". I'd hardly suggest that my ideas are the "best" ideas :^)

On a more personal note, I'd love to create a persistent Lucid Live USB with a shared data partition for recovery operations (I'm currently still using Jaunty due to VIA Xorg issues with Karmic), but it's inconvenient to miss the opportunity to edit boot options. Therefore I'm considering using an Lubuntu image and adding Nautilus, gedit, etc. because Lubuntu still uses the old behavior, but I'd miss Gnome :^(

---
 On Wed, 5/26/10, Lance <lbsolost@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

From: Lance <lbsolost@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Ayatana] Fw: Re: Rethink the noninteractive Live CD default boot?
To: "Mark Shuttleworth" <mark.shuttleworth@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: michael.forrest@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, ayatana@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wednesday, May 26, 2010, 9:27 AM

It was certainly not my intention to "reinvent the wheel" here ;^)

In my opinion the focus should just be on whether or not we improved users experiences by "hiding" the options at boot?

If we want to keep the current behavior how could that be improved or made more user friendly?

One thought I've seen talked about on the forums is simply
 adding a text message above or below the "emblems" to the effect of, "Press any key to display boot options", in English since that's the default language anyway. 

I'm not really wild about that idea though as I prefer the use of "emblems" much in the same way that road signs are now "internationalized".

Maybe the design of the "emblems" could just be improved, or possibly just an increase in their font size? I often see folks at the forums refer to the "stick man and something else"
 :^)

Above all else I don't see this as such a grave issue that we should over-complicate things and create a huge task for the developers. It's a tiny problem so shouldn't we focus on the simplest and least time consuming improvements?


-----Inline Attachment Follows-----

_______________________________________________
Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana
Post to     : ayatana@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana
More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp