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Message #09715
Re: Simplifying the interaction of Unity Dash
On Sat, Jun 16, 2012 at 4:33 PM, Connor Carney <ccarney@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> A look at other operating systems suggests that categorization is not
> necessary: out of all of the current-generation UIs, the only one that
> offers prominent categorization of installed applications is KDE.
>
> Mac OS has never categorized applications. Current versions of OS X provide
> a dock, an alphabetical list and a search box.
Not quite. There are at least two categories: Applications and
Utilities. You might consider the traditional UNIX commands a third. I
think Game Center is or may soon be a fourth.
> In Windows, each installed application creates it's own group in the start
> menu, so it's effectively just a list of applications in the order that they
> were installed. Windows 7 additionally provides a list of recent apps, a
> dock, and a search box. No meaningful categories in sight except perhaps
> "System Tools".
Yup. Similar to Mac.
> GNOME shell and Unity support searching by category, but don't provide a
> categorized list.
> Android provides a home screen, an alphabetical list, and a search box.
> iOS provides a home screen, a search box, and Siri.
>
>
> The users of those systems generally seem to be able to find their installed
> applications without categories.
I think they also have fewer applications. Most Windows users have
Notepad, WordPad, and then maybe special purpose apps like Word,
VisualSpaghetti, etc. Mac users have TextEdit, and more specialized
tools. Linux users have gedit, kate, vi, vim, emacs, xemacs, jedit,
nedit, and your mother's uncle to consider before they get to
something like Bluefish or LibreOffice. Imagine a bunch of cynical
comments along the lines of "quality vs. quantity", NIH, and CADT
here.
> Part of what complicates things in Unity, though, is the proliferation of
> non-application system features in the applications list. For example, the
> first row in my list of installed applications consists of Additional
> Drivers, Adobe Air Application Installer, Advanced Settings, AisleRiot
> Solitaire, Appearance, Archive Manager, Backup, Banshee, Bluetooth,
> Brightness and Lock. Only two of those (AisleRiot and Banshee) are
> "Applications" from the end-user perspective.
>
> (side note: WTH is "Brightness and Lock" a combined item?)
>
> Perhaps if we filtered out things like system tools (use control center) and
> file viewers (just open the file) in the default list, category browsing
> would be less of an issue for non-searchers.
I guess it doesn't make sense to complain about how Linux GUI
development focuses far too much on application launchers on this
list. But, yes, it's helpful to recognize that "Appearance" isn't an
application in any sense that matters to users. Or maybe 'mv' and 'cp'
need special icons?
References