unity-design team mailing list archive

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad <joerlend.schinstad@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 25. feb. 2012 18:36, Adrian Maier wrote:
> It's possible , but not comfortable .  Using the filters requires too
> much clicking  (see below) .
>
>
> The problem is the high number of clicks needed to have the job done :
> -  click on dash ,
> -  click on "search applications" ,
> -  click on "Filters"  ,
> -  click on "Local Apps" ,
> -  click on "Games" ,
> -  click on "see more results"

I don't understand what those steps should lead to. Why would you click 
on "search applications" or "local apps"? I mean, currently, there's 
only one other scope, which is the software center. Those results will 
be displayed below. I don't understand why that should disrupt anything. 
However, you should have access to your online games from there are 
well. Wouldn't you say?

The "available applications" scope can be permanently deactivated if you 
want to. Set /desktop/unity/lenses/applications/display-available-apps 
to False in dconf-editor, and you'll never see them again. You won't 
even see it as a source in filters. In the same place, you can also 
deactivate showing your recently used applications, which might make 
sense now that they are displayed in the dash.

So; once during the lifetime of the session, you need to click "see more 
results". After that, you won't have to click it again until you log 
out. I've proposed that it should be remembered between sessions as 
well, which would completely eliminate issue. I personally don't see one 
click per session as a huge problem, but it might be slightly more 
comfortable.

So we're left with something more like this:

* Right click Ubuntu and select Applications.
* Click games
* Click Wesnoth.

That's not so bad, is it? Of course the best way would be to press 
super, enter "we" and press enter. But we should have some fairly 
comfortable ways of using the mouse as well.

> After doing all those clicks I am finally getting the complete list of
> Games.  Clicking 6 times for seeing all the installed Games is way too
> much.

Yes, and currently, one is completely unnecessary, two must only be done 
once during the lifetime of the session. Filters are visible until you 
hide them. Scopes are selected until you change that selection. (And can 
be deactivated permanently if you wish to) The results are expanded 
until you collapse them again. So, in practice, except for the first 
time, that means one click more than using Gnome menubar.

My proposal was that this should be remembered between sessions as well, 
which would mean once during the lifetime of the user account.

> If I want to move to another category it's necessary to click 2 times :
> - click on  "Games"  to unselect it
> - click on  "Internet"

Right. I think that's unnecessary. In the meantime, it would be very 
simple to add a middle-click to select and unselect in one go, for 
instance. Or opposite; middle-click to select more than one category, 
since that probably isn't the most common intention. That is somewhat 
inconsistent as well. In Nautilus, for instance, left clicking another 
entry will select that and unselect the previous selections, unless you 
use some kind of modifier. For that reason, I consider that a bug.

> Therefore I tend to agree with the people who mentioned that the Dash
> is designed for search , not for apps navigation in directory-style .
> Navigation inside the Dash could be improved a bit if the changes
> mentioned by Omar were implemented.

Yes, for rarely used things, search is preferred. Everything that's 
frequently used will be accessible with two clicks. For the more rare 
situations when you have to browse, there is a solution as well and I 
don't think it's fairly accessible. It obviously supports a lot more 
possibilities than the old menus could ever, such as online applications 
and games. So even if it were marginally less comfortable for local 
applications – which I don't think it necessarily has to be – it would 
still be worth it.

> By the way :    i have also tried it "the Unity way " .
> - press Super  , to open the dash
> - type "games"
> - it shows me only "Aisleriot Solitaire "
>
> - if i type "game"
> - it shows me 2 games :  "Aisleriot Solitaire " and "Freecell Solitaire"
>
> Actually there are 2 more games installed : Mahjongg and Minesweeper.
> Not impressed at all about these search results.  Hopefully this is
> just a bug in the 12.04 beta .

Well, on my own computer, I usually know what games I have installed. If 
I want to play PokerTH, for instance, then I press super, enter "po" and 
press enter. I don't first search for games, then browse the available 
games and then click on PokerTH. If I wanted to play Solitaire, then I 
would press super, enter "so" and press enter. I have never typed the 
name of a category, and I don't understand why I would wish to do so, at 
least until we get scopes for online apps, games, etc.

> "the feature" =  navigate applications in a directory-style  in an
> easy, comfortable  way .

I don't think that's going to happen, because increasingly uncommon for 
people to have all their applications installed. Many of the 
applications people use are browser-apps. Having a hierarchical menu of 
tens of thousands of applications simply wouldn't work. That's the 
reason why we no longer use a directory to navigate the web, like we did 
in the early days, but instead use search engines. But I also don't 
understand why a hierarchical display is more comfortable, except out of 
old habit. We know that the old menu is very much more difficult to use 
for a large number of people, because it requires far greater accuracy 
with the mouse, for instance.

> By easy I mean :  no unnecessary clicks,    and possibility to go from
> one category to another   with at most 1 click  (preferably 0 clicks :
> mouse hover) .

Switching by default instead of multi-select would be an improvement. 
Selecting by hover simply wouldn't work. Consider selecting "Graphics" 
on hover, for instance. Sure, you would display applications from that 
category, but then how would you be able to launch any of them without 
selecting a different category on your way there? While not 
theoretically impossible, it would be extremely difficult.

> It can be a classic apps menu ,    or can be an improved Dash ,   or
> can be some new fancy-looking categories browser that allows easy
> navigation .

It is important to remember that "easy" is very subjective. You seem to 
be of the opinion that Gnome menubar was easier, for instance. But for 
someone with Parkinson's disease, it may be very much more difficult, 
since a shivering hand will often cause you to enter the wrong category, 
etc. A very large number of people have those kinds of problems. This 
doesn't affect you and me, but it still needs to be taken into account 
when doing general design.

> It indicates that I no longer intend to spend too much energy with
> discussing on this topic .
>
>  From my point of view the issue is solved :   now I am aware about
> several possibilities that will allow me to happily use Unity without
> cursing every 5 minutes .

Sure. There's lots of good software on the internet that you can install 
and use in Ubuntu. But the point was simply that this is the Unity 
Design mailinglist and should probably be somewhat limited to Unity 
design, and not any third-party application that can be installed on 
Ubuntu.


--
Jo-Erlend Schinstad