DSL Ideas and Suggestions :: v4.x Desktop Icons

Quote (mikshaw @ Dec. 01 2007,22:47)

I've known many users who focus *all* of their computing on what is immediately visible on the desktop, save all files to the desktop, and have no knowledge of anything other than what can be seen on the desktop.

Unfortunately, that won't work for DSL. First, they need to get their wireless card working. Then, they need to figure out how to mount drives, save to a persistent drive, backup and configure their settings depending on their particular install, etc., Next, they need to learn what an extension is, the entire basis of DSL. By this time, they will have had to use a command window, something foreign to most windows users. Soon they'll be on the forum, getting exposed to terminology that window's users have never heard before, and having to perform tasks that require use of scripts.

Quote (jpeters @ Dec. 01 2007,21:34)

Quote (mikshaw @ Dec. 01 2007,22:47)

I don't think that most users would have such a negative experience as you describe. Many on wired routers and boot and play. Wireless is not easy in any distro, and with new wireless cards/chips comming out eveyday. It is not easy. Same goes for encryption schemes. Also true is the challenge of users trying to use new devices made long after the target hardware, which results in irq conflicts.

MyDSL extension use in 4.x is much easier than 3.x for first time use, e.g., just boot with mydsl=hda3 and the folder will be created and setup with proper permissions. That is alot different than 3.x where this step had to be done manaully and first time used, users had to face emelfm to copy extensions to the newly manually created directory. After this initial setup it becomes easy. This initial setup is now automatic.

There should little to no reason to use CLI for intended use of DSL as a liveCD / frugal installation.

I think many do not yet know the constant efforts I do to try to make the experience easier.

I also believe many try to use 4.x on an existing 3.x mydsl structure which results in problems.

4.x is very different than 3.x. But many seem to want 4.x to morph into 3.x. It won't.

Quote (roberts @ Dec. 02 2007,00:54)

I think many do not yet know the constant efforts I do to try to make the experience easier.

..and you've done amazingly well at it, although despite your best efforts, there is going to be a learning curve. The end result, however, is a fast, efficient, flexible OS that runs on minimal resources. In contrast, here's a snip from the latest PC Magazine, Dvorak's "Inside Track"

" The Vista Fizzle Dept: The continuing negative buzz around Vista is becoming deafening as more and more users moan and groan about how unusable the new OS is. Personally, I still have not switched, because I know it will be agonizing in some way or another. The most common complaint I hear from people whose opinions I respect is that Vista is so annoyingly slow that it forces you to revert back to XP at your earliest chance. Since this product was developed during the reign of Bill Gates as 'chief software architect,' he should step up to the podium and take full responsibility and apologize for it himself."

How would you like a review like that?

Yes, mikshaw explains the discussion perfectly. The thread that spawned this poll can be found here.

I'm thinking hard about how I want to vote in this poll. Personally, I'm of the same mind as most of you that a clean desktop is the best thing tolook at. The two machines that I use the most are set up with a plain black background, no icons at all. I've assigned keyboard shortcuts to all of my favorite apps (Firefox, text editor etc) and rely on application associations to open up my data files (what Robert refers to as document-centric). Like you, I'm a veteran computer user who has developed many sophisticated ways to navigate the system with little effort.

The laptop, however, and my DSL desktops all have many icons. For convenience, or because of beginner ignorance, this works better on these machines.

I generally use the laptop from a location where I'm sitting awkwardly and find that I make more typos; the desktop icons streamline my access to data and I'm grateful that I can negotiate the system without the frustration of having to correct spelling mistakes or hit small targets on command menus due to the poor ergonomics.

And since I'm new to DSL, my Linux desktop icons keep reminding me of what's available on the system. As time goes by, I'm sure that I'll clear this desktop as I learn to execute all the apps from a console with <command &> syntax. For now, it's a challenge to remember which letters make up the name of the [image_viewer] app.

It's much, much quicker to erase desktop icons than it is to navigate the directories and copy them all to the desktop. So, I don't mind erasing them when I'm ready.

And copying them to the desktop doesn't organize them in clean row, column alignment [it's very free-flow currently and I haven't found the switch to control this], so the prepared desktop has advantages in organization and as well.

The point that I always come back to is: "For whom are you building this OS?"

If you (I wish I could say 'we' but I haven't learned enough yet to be much help) want to attract new users and have them adopt DSL, then you should continue to offer them an "at your fingertips" desktop. This guarantees that they can quickly learn how much this distribution can offer straight out of the box and will give them the momentum they need to reach for it before anything else.

Quote

my Linux desktop icons keep reminding me of what's available on the system

That's the wrong paradigm for DSL 4. With DSL 4, the concept isn't what applications are on the system, but rather what data YOU have on the system. Your files are linked to what's available so you drive the system from your files -- your data -- rather than by opening an application and then searching for the data. That's why you only need your /home/dsl folder on the desktop. If you don't want to edit with beaver, change the file association to what you use. If you don't want to open a link or local html with dillo, edit dfmext to associate it with what you want. You can do the same in pre-4 versions using emelfm or even mc (or even with rox since it has MIME-type associations and is also a drag and drop desktop), but dfm moves it to the desktop and integrates everything better without being heavy on the system.

Quote

I'm sure that I'll clear this desktop as I learn to execute all the apps from a console with <command &> syntax. For now, it's a challenge to remember which letters make up the name of the [image_viewer] app.

That's fine, but you can make it easier on yourself if you edit your .bashrc so you have auto-completion and then you needn't remember every name (type letters and tabs until you get what you want). I don't know if zsh's spell-checking fixes the case issue, but that's another option if you want to use a terminal to open applications; alternatively, you can symlink with all lower case for apps that have some caps. I don't know why you'd need to resort to a terminal if you're using keybindings.

Edit: If you want to use an app-centric approach via terminal, another option is to symlink or alias the applications with what they do -- e.g., link or alias xzgv to viewer, dillo/firefox to browser, beaver to editor, etc. I think it's kind of clunky to do all that when things have been done to make it more convenient out of the box, but whatever works for you. (end edit)

As far as icons versus menu goes, I don't know how much more "at your fingertips" things can get. The menu in jwm is a lot more familiar to those migrating from other operating systems than the one in fluxbox. There are already icons in the tray. There's already an icon for applications.

Is DSL oriented for "new users" or "older hardware" or both, and what's the compromise to be struck between the two positions? New users should be able to navigate the menu. Users of older hardware, including monitors with resolutions below 1024x768, shouldn't have to start deleting icons or turn off dfm by default. That's why I'm stuck with my position that a few desktop icons -- ~/, / as root, applications, and mydsl -- are sufficient and the rest can go in the tray and/or menu.

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