unity-design team mailing list archive

[shane lee <shaneymail@xxxxxxxxx>]

Categorizing to your own requirements is slightly different as things
are exactly where you expect them to be.
As others have said, applications can fall under different categories
and there is a certain degree of overlapping.

I hated the gnome menu system and back when using gnome 2 to the
extent I spent hours with alacarte menu editor to re-arrange
everything into categories that suited me and I longed for a search
bar in the menu.
In fact I eventually started using Mint Menu in ubuntu (when it was
first created in Mint) and then Cardapio to bring that functionality
and instantly found gnome more usable.

I have never found pre-defined categories ideal.
I certainly don't think dash is ideal by any means.

Having said all that, if ubuntu is to appeal to as many people as
possible I think browsing applications has to be done in a better way.

On 17 June 2012 02:58, pjssilva@xxxxxxxxx <pjssilva@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I have never used OS X, so I can not comment about it.
>
> I have always thought that it was easier to navigate the application
> menu from the Gnome 2
> when compared to windows messy starting menu where applications were
> everywhere and could easily grow to an unusable state. So I don't
> think the messy windows menu is a good point to start.
>
> Phone/desktop OS are not the best models for a desktop OS. For
> example, windows is receiving a very harsh criticism for trying to
> create a weird hybrid. Moreover I also use an Android phone. My phone
> uses Go Launcher because it has nice folders that I can use to
> categorize my applications. It is much faster to see all the
> categories in one screen and from there open the right folder than to
> move around many pages of apps. People that I know that use iOS also
> and that have many apps also tend to categorize them in different
> pages for different categories. So they have the games page(s), the
> media page, the Internet page, etc. The same happen with the Android
> users I know that don't use a launcher with good folder support.
> Finally good folder support is one of the major features in Android
> 4.0 default launcher. Hence Android and iOS do have support for
> categorization, they only don't have default categories. The user is
> considered responsible for the categorization.
>
> What Linux system do (up to now, as Gnome is moving away from it) is
> to give the user some predefined categories. I think this is good, it
> is a starting point which is naturally useful as a desktop usually
> have many more applications installed than in a phone.
>
> Now, I would really like to hear the *reasoning* against having
> default categories. Why it is preferable to let the burden to the user
> do all the job for each new applications he/she installs (and all the
> installed applications that come by default). Sure, it is impossible
> to find a good categorization that fits everyone. But we can find a
> reasonable initial one. The current one is good enough for me.
>
> Another nice question is what to do with shared computers. User A
> installed application X and categorized it in his W category. What
> happens to user B? He might not have W category. He might think that
> the best category is Z not W?
>
> best,
>
> Paulo
>
> 2012/6/16 Connor Carney <ccarney@xxxxxxxxx>:
>> 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.
>> 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".
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> --
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>
>
>
> --
> Paulo José da Silva e Silva
> Professor Associado, Dep. de Ciência da Computação
> (Associate Professor, Computer Science Dept.)
> Universidade de São Paulo - Brazil
>
> e-mail: pjssilva@xxxxxxxxxx         Web: http://www.ime.usp.br/~pjssilva
>
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