The Beryl project has won a lot of press time so far with its impressive tricks -- even more than its slower-evolving daddy, Compiz. There are several lose ends to Beryl's core engine and incompatibilities with existing applications or technologies. However, something that really put off a lot of people when they try Beryl is its dreadful settings manager.
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Member since:2005-07-02
Member since:2005-06-28
Member since:2006-05-14
>> Unfortunately, "advanced" is not a good idea for any UI.
> But what about advanced users?
Advanced users shouldn't use those advanced settings either, to prevent confusion just in case an new user is exposed to such an advanced desktop. (Everybody who just sees such a settings manager is one user less going to try out linux). They also should focus on the simplified settings panel to be able to help an new user instantly, if he asks for help, and not waste their time and confuse themselves too with the "advanced" one.
Linux absolutely needs an strong Gleichschaltung (see Wikipedia), and those so called "advanced users" just _have to_ give up their sick desires for more confusing configurability in order to serve the Linux cause, the Endsieg and total domination of the desktop.
Configurability kills Linux! Configurability is _THE_ keyword! So in order to be more successful than Windows, Linux has to be _way less_ configurable than windows! Its not missing applications or device driver issues that are slowing down Linux adoption, its the overwhelming configurability!
Try to finally realise this fact, and then live by it.
Edited 2007-03-20 10:37
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2007-03-20
Actually at the link you provide, Havoc does not say "advanced" is always bad. He says;
"Advanced tabs must not be used as band-aids or excuses for stupid designs"
But he also says;
"Sometimes there may be a good reason for an Advanced tab or the like "
I think an advanced tab is always essential, particularly for free software. The reason is that you need to segment your users into users who are just users, users who are contributers and users who are developers. Then you need to turn users who are just users into contributers and ultimately developers. To do this you can't hide the internals of your program away from your users. You have to expose a certain amount of the complexity to them. Users have to fiddle, tweak and customize to be drawn into bug fixing, contribution and development. This is not for all users, but the possibility has to be there. Plentiful preferences, just below the surface in an advanced section of the configuration programs is a way to provide this possibility.
The problem with many preferences is not generally the number of preferences, but their organization and exposure to the user. Hiding the advanced preferences is a separate program/tab is a good idea.
Then there is the issue of FOSS culture as opposed to proprietary software culture. In proprietary software there is a clear distinction between users and producers of software and users have no business meddling in the production process. Unless they are invited in, under carefully controlled conditions, by the research department. This leads to an as vs them mentality between users and developers. I think this mentality is alive and well in the Gnome community and it is developing really well. Too bad. In the long run this will not be good for Gnome.
Member since:
2005-06-28
Thanks for the comment. Unfortunately, "advanced" is not a good idea for any UI. Havoc Pennington blogged about this explained it a few years ago. http://ometer.com/free-software-ui.html