"Today, the GNOME Project celebrates the release of GNOME 2.18, the latest version of the popular, multi-platform Free desktop environment." The GNOME 2.18 start page has all the details, such as release notes, download locations, and screenshots.
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Member since:2006-10-08
"I think it is obvious that we need at least three levels of interface, selectable by the user:
1. Novice
2. Intermediate
3. Advanced"
I've suggested this as an idea to improve KDE. Because this has been discussed a few times, I just want to add a fourth level.
4. User configured
In this level, the (advanced / professional) user could configure all options and menues for what they should include, item by item, rearranging them as he likes it.
A similar concept has been used by Geoworks Ensemble 3.0 more than 10 years ago.
"The current strategy of simplifying the primary interface and stuffing all the rest into the gconf-editor is suboptimal."
This approach will make the UI less interesting for professionals who want to use it. On the other hand, even the simplest interface can be "misunderstood" if the (potential / novice) user is spoiled by strange and complicated concepts he might know from other desktop environments, usually from them manufactured by MICROS~1. :-)
"The user should be able to start out with a simple, reduced option interface. And then graduate to higher levels as their proficiency increases."
This is what made GeoWorks that appealing.
"I'm not confining my recommendation to Gnome, BTW. Gnome, KDE, and XFCE are all in a position to implement it.
First one that does will be a winner."
The first one was GeoWorks, as far as I know.. :-)
I really like this idea. It has been discussed to even to change the level dynamically. The system recognizes which options are used most times and places them in an obvious place. The disadvantage is a periodically changing UI which might cause problems...
Okay, just an idea. :-)
Member since:2005-07-07
Member since:2006-01-25
That reminds me of gnome 1.x... it didn't work because when someone asked a question on how to change one option that was in advanced mode, they would switch to the advanced settings and never switch back. Also, many users, especially those who want to try Linux, feel like they're advanced users, so they will enable that option. For the most part, options are either useful or they're really not, except for really, really advanced users who want to customize everything on their entire desktop. Being able to edit the menus everywhere might be helpful, but I think it would be a huge step back to have more then one set of defaults for beginner and expert and in between.
Member since:2006-01-12
For the most part, options are either useful or they're really not, except for really, really advanced users who want to customize everything on their entire desktop.
I think there are two (three) kinds of options:
1. Basic, useful, used often. This is the usual stuff, the homepage of your webbrowser, font size etc.
2. Matter of taste, seldomly used but nevertheless useful. This is stuff you change once and then never again. e.g. I haven't touched much of my pretty extensive KDE customizations since the early 3.0beta days.
(3. Advanced system configuration stuff; used not too often, but it's nevertheless important to offer a graphic config tool for it. IME it's much easier to tell a non-expert over the phone how to change stuff in the third submenu, second tab, than to get them to open anything that looks like a command-line. For this kind of stuff gconf is sufficiently "GUIy", more buttons and less text wouldn't hurt though. =)
Imho, developers should try to split their options in categories 1 and 2, and put those in 2 in an "advanced tab", or in an advanced dialog (see advanced settings in the Windows display settings; I need them quite often, I'd be really pissed if I had to edit the registry for this kind of stuff, but I acknowledge that it's just too advanced to put it in the main dialog)
Member since:2005-07-06
Another variant is the one oulined in this paper [1]
"The design includes two interfaces between which the user can easily toggle: (1) an interface personalized by the user containing desired features only, and (2) the default interface with all the standard features."
Instead of fixed interface "levels" you have the "personalized" level and the "kitchen sink" level. With an easy way to toggle features from the latter to show in the first.
[1] http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=503376.503406
Member since:2006-02-20
This hast discussed to death, you know?
(*shudders* another ghost of user interface past... )
Experience levels have been tried before and they have always failed and will always fail.
First of all, it's a hell to support. Have you ever worked on IT first level support? Even getting people trough "normal" configuration dialogs is a hell. Having multiple versions of configuration dialogs and trying to figure out, which version the user has active is so much, much, much worse.
The second issue is, that as soon someone doesn't find a configuration option for some exotic feature he would like the application to have, he (or she) will turn to the "Advanced" level. Noone ever uses the intermediate level configuration dialog.
Nautilus had such a thing years and years ago. It failed, is was removed. It's dead and burried, please leave it there; it's just where it belongs.
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it."I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)"."The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight.""And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.
Member since:
2005-07-24
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I just want to add that this has been true for quite a number of releases.
Some people, who disagree with the level of simplification of the Gnome UI, want to see more options added back.
But this user missed a very basic one in the current forest of menu options.
I think it is obvious that we need at least three levels of interface, selectable by the user:
1. Novice
2. Intermediate
3. Advanced
The current strategy of simplifying the primary interface and stuffing all the rest into the gconf-editor is suboptimal.
The user should be able to start out with a simple, reduced option interface. And then graduate to higher levels as their proficiency increases.
I'm not confining my recommendation to Gnome, BTW. Gnome, KDE, and XFCE are all in a position to implement it.
First one that does will be a winner.