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.The current settings manager recently went under its second re-write, but it kept the same philosophy of being too elaborate. It is a good platform for developers to test how their Beryl plugins are behaving with each setting, but the reality is that it is not an end-user focused preference panel.
However, the time where most major desktop distros will be shipping by default with Beryl is nearing — might be as close as the coming October (hint, hint). For these distros, a new Gnome/KDE preference panel will be needed, one that has a sane amount of settings without overpowering the user. Hence, my little mockups below.
These mockups imply some other under the hood settings too, mostly having to do with Gnome integration in this case:
* Viewports are off by default. Beryl must use Gnome’s/KDE’s virtual desktop applet’s settings regarding workspaces.
* The Heliodor engine is used by default so users can use existing Metacity themes. There is no reason to re-invent the wheel here. Metacity’s current pref panel should work as Heliodor’s settings too.
* No reason for a notification-area Beryl icon. Enabling/disabling must happen from the Gnome pref panel, which sets itself to startup or not in the next login session.
* No 3D cubes and skydomes and other useless stuff like that. Most of the other plugins should be OFF too.
* Very few shortcuts, only the ones that are really used and they don’t get on the way of Gnome/KDE’s existing shortcut list. The current shortcut list is unbearable.
* Most of the animations must take less time to get carried through, so the user don’t run out of patient within the hour of using Beryl.
* Only animate with the “burn” or “beam me up” effects main application’s windows on “close”, not alerts or dialogs that belong to the application.
* “View windows from all workspaces” should be as easy to use as Mac OS X’s Panther new virtual screen “scale” effect. Cuts the desktop in 4 rectangles making it easier to visualize what is where.
* UI zooming and negative windows must get integrated into Gnome’s accessibility panels, they don’t belong to the main pref panel.
And of course, some bug fixes are important:
* Totem’s and VLC’s video screens don’t refresh when Beryl is used.
* Gnome’s Terminal simply refuses to resize up!
* Some GL windows don’t refresh the screen when moved around the screen.
* When placing a window at a specific space in the screen and then maximize that window, and then unmaximize it again, the window does not go back to its set place. Window placement still needs lots of work in Beryl.
I am pretty sure that some of Beryl’s developers won’t like the “dieting” of their efforts because let’s face it, they are in to Beryl for the fun of it. But point of the matter is, some distros are not just for the fun anymore. They have a vast userbase that comes from different backgrounds and they must offer them a UI that makes sense: that is not too overwhelming and not too boring either. This is why some case studies and usability tests must be done to determine default settings like e.g. “how much transparency is too much” or “how quickly a window must minimize” and then provide the accompanied effects for these settings as non-editable by the “consumer” version of the Beryl settings manager.
As with everything in life, usually the simplest or middle ground solutions are the best. I take that same point of view in technology too, so hopefully others will agree with me too. Maybe someone will agree so much that he/she will implement a limited-set but sane default Beryl configuration with the suggested UI for Gnome/KDE. That would be the day!
I also wonder why they didn’t add a searchbar like most KDE and Mac OSX (like how Spotlight searches in preferences) preference apps have during the other re-design. It seems like that would help even the power users.
Ars Technica just did a review of Beryl and I have to say I’m pretty embarrassed for Mac OS X and Windows users hearing it called “revolutionary” when the options panel looks like it does. It just reinforces every stereotype about Linux.
Edited 2007-03-20 02:15
A searchbar is NOT something the falls under the scope of a window manager. Unless you are talking about a search panel within the settings manager. If that’s the case you need to go back and take a closer look: there already is one.
I don’t see what’s wrong with the settings manager. The new design looks great and has a very logical layout. If you don’t like it you’re always welcome to go back to windows/mac.
Edited 2007-03-20 02:31
http://www.osnews.com/img/17520/beryl.png
I must be missing something because I don’t see a searchbar here. I’m thinking of something like this: http://www.mymacblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/system-prefs-sp…
It’s located under the “General Options” tab.
Only for keyboard shortcuts. There needs to be a way to search for an actual option as well, for example… what if I want to change the size of thumbnails? Hrm… can’t seem to find it… ah, finally, there it is. Or… even worse, when there are two conflicting settings in different modules, it would be nice to be able to quickly find the other to turn it off.
There needs to be a way to search for an actual option as well,
You know, if you know how to code, I’m sure the Beryl projects is still taking contributors.
for example… what if I want to change the size of thumbnails? Hrm… can’t seem to find it… ah, finally, there it is.
You’re exaggerating a bit – it’s not that hard to find the options in the current settings manager. Adding a search function here is overkill, in my view (considering the work involved).
Or… even worse, when there are two conflicting settings in different modules, it would be nice to be able to quickly find the other to turn it off.
Beryl won’t allow you to turn on two conflicting plugins. You’ll be presented with a choice on which one you want to use, but you won’t be able to use both.
I like the mockup; its nice and simple.
I’d like to add one thing, I like the new setting manager but i agree it’s too involved. It’d be real sweat if it could be assigned to an “Advanced” button to your mockup. What do you think???
One thing I’d disagree with is the 3D cube should not be off by default, this effect is a symbol of the 3D desktop on the Linux box!! It’s to Linux 3D desktop as the dock to Mac or the start menu to windows.
The points I strongly agree with are:
1) “Beryl must use Gnome’s/KDE’s virtual desktop applet’s settings regarding workspaces”, its nice to know someone said ewhat ive been thinking all along
2) Enable/disable bryl from gnome settings panel
3) Metacity should be the windows decorator by default, no nead for Emerald, this was a very confusing for me starting off…dont get me wrong Emerald has great themes
All in all, good mockup.
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
Unfortunately, “advanced” is not a good idea for any UI.
But what about advanced users?
“Advanced” users can always use the current settings panel.
Okay, I understand, I though you meant to scrap the current panel for the new one. Now I understand you mean having both. In that case I do agree with you.
>> 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
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!
Sarcasm <- activate
Unfortunately, you’re talking to the wrong guys. Most people are here exactly because they like Linux for its configurability. Most of the geeks want to spend half their day fiddling with configuration options. It’s their hobby. They like computers, so they want configurability and 1000 complicated features. How boring would a computer be without all those functions? It would be nothing more than a useful tool, designed to make our lives easier! But, seriously, who wants such boring and sensible stuff?
Sarcasm <- deactivate
“Advanced users shouldn’t use those advanced settings either,”
So advanced users should give up their freedom just..
“to prevent confusion just in case an new user is exposed to such an advanced desktop.”
One thing is for sure: he/she will not be a new user forever.
Give it time and there is a chance that this user will become an advanced user as well.
At this point the circle has closed and the user will become just as frustrated as the teacher with the lack of configurability and freedom.
Edit: quoting, typos
Edited 2007-03-20 11:08
So an advanced users should give up their freedom just..
I recon you could call it “freedom” to have your car dashboard equipped like the cockpit of a 747. Just about every single option you need to get you from A to B in the most sophisticated manner. It’s also nice to have the option of getting there 2 seconds faster with 0.12% less fuel consumption, because you are capable of reprogramming the chip that controls the engine output. Let’s ignore that you spent 30 minutes configuring your car correctly to start it.
When you’re finally on the road you might get there. The car also might break, because you accidentally hit the wrong switch.
Should I settle for the 4 cylinder engine today, or should I spend a day reinstalling the other 6 cylinder in my own specialized home workshop, before I go driving for the weekend? It’s nice to have a choice.
Now aren’t you just becoming a slave of your own car? Is that freedom for an advanced user? Cars aren’t like that for a reason, and I wish the same philosophy was applied to computing, but sadly only very few are getting this.
Give it time and there is chance that this new user will be an advanced user as well.
Been there, done that. I quit compiling kernels and tinkering with soundcard drivers a long, long time ago, because the process is extraordinarily tiresome, however interesting it might be in the beginning. In the end you realize that you are only kidding yourself, instead of getting to the fun part of computing: Doing something with your computer.
I think there is a big difference between an “advanced user” and someone who wants to tinker with everything and don’t really care if the machine works or not.
> Now aren’t you just becoming a slave of your own car?
You summed it up rather nicely (but arent the first one who came up with this nice idea). Yeah, freedom _is_ slavery.
Now aren’t you just becoming a slave of your own car?
No you aren’t. By definition you cannot choose to become a slave. It’s your choice to tinker with your car like that after all.
“Is that freedom for an advanced user?”
Yes!
“Cars aren’t like that for a reason,”
Cars ARE like that! You’re not very familiar with car tuning or customizing aren’t you? Maybe you should watch a few episodes of the TV show Pimp My Ride just to educate yourself
“and I wish the same philosophy was applied to computing, but sadly only very few are getting this.
Maybe we should not have the freedom to change the OS to [insert your favorite alternative OS here] either because, god forbid, this freedom adds to the complexity of computing too!
Cars ARE like that! You’re not very familiar with car tuning or customizing aren’t you? Maybe you should watch a few episodes of the TV show Pimp My Ride just to educate yourself
No. This is not the same thing, because when you do that, you change the rules of the game: The level of customizability.
To make similar rules for a car as we are doing for a desktop environment, you would look at the amount of options exposed on a factory new car.
They don’t put options on the dashboard for you to directly program the engine chip or adjust how much powersteering you want. Neither are there options for how fast you should be driving before the airbag goes off in a collision or when the seatbelt should tighten.
These are things that you normally trust that trained engineers have spend many hours and millions of $ designing and testing, before selling you the car.
This is exactly what we’re discussing for the general Linux desktop. I’m sure the debate was around as well, when the Apple I became the Apple II and a few users may have been pissed that Apple decided to come up with their own enclosure, rather than let users put their own case together for a motherboard. But strangely enough, this helped selling a few more Apple II than Apple I.
Computers really should be a lot more like cars.
No. This is not the same thing, because when you do that, you change the rules of the game: The level of customizability.
What or whose rules do you mean? All desktops (Gnome, KDE, Windows, MAC OS X, BeOS etc.) currently have different levels of customizability
I also think that you cannot really compare cars and operating systems as a car is an appliance and a general purpose OS is not.
Edited 2007-03-20 15:15
I’m sure the debate was around as well, when the Apple I became the Apple II and a few users may have been pissed that Apple decided to come up with their own enclosure, rather than let users put their own case together for a motherboard. But strangely enough, this helped selling a few more Apple II than Apple I.
You *are* aware that you could every easily remove the top of the Apple ][ in order to access its innards, right? It wasn’t even held fast by screws or anything, you simply lifted it up.
Also, I find this example a bit misleading since when you turned on your Apple computer, you were greeted with a BASIC prompt, meaning you *had* to tinker with it if you wanted to do stuff.
Not only that but Apple is not exactly “doing well” by many accounts as far as their computer division is concerned compared to the bulk of the computers installed out there (the same ones that you can take apart and do anything that you want nonetheless), unless one for some reason thinks that ~2-5% of anything is giving the competition a run for their money!
That´s the lamest excuse to try to make Apple look good compared to anything that I ever saw…
Edited 2007-03-20 20:25
Er…that wasn’t really what henrikmk. He was talking about the Apple ][, a computer that came out 30 years ago. As far as I can tell, the analogy was limited to that particular time, and has nothing to do with Apple’s current market share.
Say what you will about Apple’s current position in the market, the fact is that, of all the personal computer makers of that era, they’re the only ones still making PCs today. They must have done *something* right, don’t you think?
Haha, you got suckered. The parent was sarcasm! …I think.
[sarcasm mode on]
Hey, maybe having a user decide what programs run on his/her computer or not is WAY confusing! Why don’t distros use a script that eliminates CONFUSING menus and decides when and what software is running in every given moment of the day for a user? This way the user won’t have to painstakingly decide “oh what do I do now, do I open a spreadsheet and do work or do I play solitaire another 10 minutes?” – That’s progress!
[sarcasm mode off]
Everyone I know I have converted to Linux, loves it because of its configurability. I’ve never, ever heard one whining about “oh it would be good but I hate the fact it’s so configurable”, apart from so-called UI experts like Havoc Pennington.
Get over it “Linux is not Windows”, the sooner the people realise that the less frustrated and open-minded they will be concerning different concepts.
http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm
(Everybody who just sees such a settings manager is one user less going to try out linux).
Nonsensical. If they’re seeing the settings manager, they’re *already* trying Linux.
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!
I completely disagree. Configurability is what brought me to Linux in the first place. Without the ability to tinker and customize, Linux wouldn’t be where it is right now. In fact, it wouldn’t be anywhere.
Make things easier for newbies, yes, but allow advanced users to tinker.
Try to finally realise this fact, and then live by it.
It’s not a fact, it’s an opinion, and – in my opinion – a fallacious one at that.
Yes, but I disagree wholeheartedly with Havoc ideas on UI usability. They are not Gospel, last time I checked. To me, preferences and advanced options are essential (that’s probably why I use KDE).
So the question is perfectly legit.
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.
Yes, the 3D Cube is awesome and think it should stay on by default. As long as switching has reasonable keystroke combinations, and the switching stays fast, I see no loss in productivity, but only an insanely cool new view.
Thing is, Beryl requires 50 additional MBs of RAM than a plain 2D X server. The fewer plugins, the better, in terms of RAM.
I haven’t looked into much about Beryl or Compiz… are there any particularly useful plugins that cost less RAM than a 3D cube?
And in any case, if it eats up that much RAM, is it really a good idea to activate it by default? (My guess is no)
One thing I’d disagree with is the 3D cube should not be off by default, this effect is a symbol of the 3D desktop on the Linux box!! It’s to Linux 3D desktop as the dock to Mac or the start menu to windows.
I dumped the cube for the new desktop wall plugin. Personally find it more useable seeing all desktops at once, and dragging windows among them. And it maintains a nicely conservative yet still slick bling factor that doesn’t get dismissed as toyish when I use it at work.
The cube is just so, you know, 2006.
1) Agree strongly. Riding rough-shod over existing WMs’ methods is a sure recipe for chaos, as I’ve seen with both beryl and compiz (which I actually use).
2) Substitute KControl and I agree with you
3) Substitute KWin … well, lol @me but I prefer Metacity’s themes, so I quite agree. Let’s work *with* the WinDecos, not against them!
Can we commit the mockup now? The Berylsetting manager is a nightmare. Sane defaults and most commonly used setting in one common place please devs!!! For most people these would do just fine. I think the SUSE/RHEL routes are sufficient for most. ON or OFF.
I may be mistaken, but, several developers have developed simpler interfaces for Beryl’s myriad of features. One was “beryl-settings-simple.” I don’t know if it’s still valid though.
Once again the old fight of simplicity vs user freedom.
I myself as a KDE user loves to play with settings. I like to tweak the hell out of my UI to ‘MY’ liking, not what some dev thinks it should be.
On the Gnome side the users leave it up to the devs to pick and choose for them. To me that sounds a lot like Windows and OSX, the lack of freedom to really tweak the UI.
Yes Beryl-settings takes it a bit far, my point of view is that give the users the freedom to tweak, find out what works best, and make them the defaults.
You have to think about whats really going on here.. this is a whole new UI that no one has really done before. Do you want the settings to be hard coded or let the users play around with this new fun UI.
And its gotten much better, think back to the first few versions of beryl-settings… now that was bad.
What could be better though, even in KDE, is the logical arrangement of options. With the right grouping and presentation of the options, it becomes less intimidating for the user, while preserving the customization of the advanced user.
OSX has numerous “More Options” buttons throughout the UI, yet OSX gets praised as being easiest-to-use UI for a personal computer.
Take my pet peeve with KDE– I prefer double-click to single-click. Every time I have to change this, I wind up in “Personal Settings -> Desktop -> Behavior”, because to me, that’s where it ought to be.
In reality, it’s “Personal Settings -> Peripherals -> Mouse”, and it’s the “Peripherals” step that throws me. It’s not like I haven’t been using SuSE (And KDE) since the 7.x days, but that one option always annoys me when I have to set it.
Beryl’s settings manager takes this even farther, because all of the options are grouped by plugin. As a programmer, I understand that this is logical, but as an end user, it should be grouped by effect, not by cause.
Finally, most of Beryl’s defaults seem designed to show off the eye-candy, which is great, but I typically cut most of the animation times in *half*, because I’ve got better things to do than watch a window drain down into my taskbar.
>but as an end user, it should be grouped by effect, not by cause.
I disagree. While after some months of using the system you would know what “Beam me up” is, for new users it is easier to understand something like “close window”.
MrEcho, I agree. This sounds like the KDE vs. GNOME, the user is too dumb to use all these things so don’t turn them on by default and make it hard to turn them on later rhetoric. I also believe that the Beryl settings manager needs to be simplified, but I don’t believe that Beryl itself needs to be simplified. The code needs to be cleaned up to keep it from crashing or using too many resources, but don’t take away features. I like the wobbly windows, transparencies, the cube, skydome, etc. I believe its these things that sets Beryl apart from other windows managers. If you don’t like these features you can do one of two things, turn them off yourself or don’t use Beryl. ‘nough said.
…is that they’re *your* personal choices. I agree with Joecool, the 3D cube is very useful – at least to me – and I wouldn’t like having to go having to edit a text file to put it back in.
I think a “lightweight” settings manager is a good idea – which is why one already comes with Beryl (beryl-settings-simple), although in that case maybe it is *too* simple.
As an alternate to the main Settings Manager (which should still be included for power users), I’d say your proposal is good, though I would add a checkmark for the cube – it’s a very popular feature, after all. Oh, and no one really cares about a few more MBs in these day of 1GB+ RAM computers…
These are the most basic settings. For the rest, as I wrote in the article, a user study must be conducted, preferably sponsored by a company like Red Hat or Novell or Canonical.
A user study would be nice, but I doubt it’ll happen. Also, one should always be careful with user studies. To get reliable results you need large sample groups and a good methodology.
The more pressing need is for more documentation. There are little “help” floating tips for every setting, but they’re often cryptic. The Wiki is also severly lacking as far as plugin description goes.
Personally, I think that sane default settings goes a long way – and that’s the responsibility of the distro makers, not the Beryl devs.
In any case, it’s quite impressive what the Beryl and Compiz teams have accomplished in a relatively short period of time. I can’t wait to see what the next year will bring!
User studies HAVE happened with regards to Compiz: http://www.betterdesktop.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main
and they were sponsored by Novell.
I believe that problems with Totem/VLC may be related to XGL rather than Beryl…
Yes, but for these technologies to go live on a distro, these problems should be fixed. I use AIXGL btw.
Strange, I thought the video problems were with XGL. So you have a Nvidia card, I presume? (Using AIXGL with ATI means using the open-source Radeon driver, which is not very fast IIRC).
For what it’s worth, kmplayer plays videos fine on Beryl/XGL/ATI with fgrlx, though it takes more juice, and when you run them full screen they’re not quite as smooth, so there’s definitely an issue.
I’ve used the same setup with both ATi (OSS driver) and Intel 945G. The same problems persists no matter which laptop I use.
You should try it with ATI’s commercial driver instead of the OSS one. Video works passably well here.
I prefer not to use the non-free version. I mostly use the new laptop anyway, the Intel-based one.
I prefer not to use the non-free version.
Well, it’s your loss. The free driver is not that good, so don’t expect good results with it…
I use AIGLX+Beryl+KDE on a Gentoo box with ATI Radeon 9200SE, OSS drivers. mplayer and xine playback worked well from the start (apart from aquamarine crashing when I exit mplayer, but oh well, that’s me using SVN versions)
I honestly like beryl’s settings manager the way it is. Complain all you want about it, but even if its the worst settings manager in the world, at least beryl has one (or at least makes sure that its easily accessable)… Where is the compiz settings manager?
It´s right here:
http://gandalfn.wordpress.com/gnome-compiz-manager/screenshot/
ok, so im a bit out of date
But I still like the beryl settings manager.
I guess it’s about perspective; I’d be more likely to describe your mockup as dreadful than the current one, which I find very easy to find my way about. My only complaint would be that it’s noticeably slow to start since the Python rewrite, but I don’t use it enough to really care.
I don’t see that there’s anything particularly more usable about the mockup, other than the fact that it only exposes 1% of Beryl’s configurability. Yes, the current one is probably a bit much for a new user, but it allows me to set Beryl up how I want it, not be hamstrung by developers who have arbitrarily picked a bunch of defaults for me.
Maybe there’s a happy medium. Currently Beryl’s only at 0.2.1 or something; it’s obviously aimed at a pretty techy bunch of users who are happy to tweak it at great length.
The obvious answer would be to have both; let’s say that hypothetically Ubuntu ships Beryl, they could bundle a simplified thing that clueless users aren’t overwhelmed by, and have the current one available from their repository. Problem solved.
Beryl is cool when configured sanely. Burning windows and rain droplets are a little too much for me.
I’m interested to see a comparison between Beryl or Compix and Project Looking Glass.
I like the simple settings window, however, the Beryl name has been kept inside the settings window. How about settling for just Desktop Effects?
I find the use of all these weird application names inside Gnome to be rather confusing, because I can’t remember what they are for.
Edited 2007-03-20 08:42
End-user response:
“What the hell is a Beryl?” -> call it ‘Disable 3D Desktop Effects’
“What the hell is a minimap?” -> (I don’t know what the hell this is and neither does Google; it sounds like something you shouldn’t even ask, if it’s useful, enable it, if it’s useful but there’s a problem with it, disable it, fix the problem, then enable it)
“What the hell is a viewport?”
“What the hell is a workspace?”
It’s a good idea and looks better than anything anyone’s come up with so far, but I still wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s anything most people would feel comfortable using. Hell, I don’t know what half of it means.
There is a “help” button there. For every new thing there is a learning curve anyway. And Beryl is new.
True, but I still think it could be made more easy to understand right off the bat.
Don’t know about KDE, but help buttons in Gnome are not exactly helpful, and users surely soon stop trying to use them. In my experience, they are usually placeholders for That Time In The Future When There Will Be Documentation, and there’s hardly ever any real help behind.
And why must the user learn what “Beryl” is, when you can simply call the desktop’s 3D efects “Desktop 3D effects”?. Aunt Tillie surely does not need to learn the meaning of hal, dbus, cairo, beryl, compiz, metacity, samba, gnome, gtk, java, mono, aiglx, xgl, opengl, exposé, bonjour, synaptic, etcetera. Most often, she should happily ignore they all exist, and if she were to be exposed to one of them, she should be able to guess what it does do from the name.
“Internet Explorer” is a better name than “Firefox”, “Messenger” is a better name than “Gaim”, “Paint” and “Photoshop” are better names than “Gimp” or “Krita” (“Krayon” is kool, though — in English or French), “Media Player” and “Rhythmbox” are better names than “Banshee” or “Totem”, “Minimovie” would be better than “Pitivi”.
Programs that provide the more or less standard functionality should have descriptive names. Rarer programs are different: by the time you need Eclipse or Anjuta, we can assume you know your way.
> Programs that provide the more or less standard
> functionality should have descriptive names.
They dont have to have descriptive names, having a description in the menus would be enough.
A distinctive name is a trademark you have to have if you want your program to be reckognizable and retrievable. Without a name you cant even ask for help, because the other side cant know if youre now using Windows, KDE, GNome or OS X, if they _all_ name their movie player just “Movie Player”.
Aunt Tillie knows the difference between a BigMac and a Whopper, and you wouldnt help her calling both of them just “hamburgers”. How is she going to tell which player she likes more if she cant name them more precisely than “the one player” and “the other player”. How is she even going to tell you if she likes OS X more than Gnome, if she cant name them? Or, for that case, how are _you_ going to distinguish the apps and desktops, in order to decide what program to choose for aunt Tillie, when they are eventually all called the same? By their default background color?
Edited 2007-03-20 12:37
“Aunt Tillie surely does not need to learn the meaning of hal, dbus, cairo, beryl, compiz, metacity, samba, gnome, gtk, java, mono, aiglx, xgl, opengl, exposé, bonjour, synaptic, etcetera.”
Ah, you mean like how she shouldnt need to learn the meaning of UAC, Aero, .NET, Winamp, WMP, C#, SMB, MMC and such?
“Internet Explorer” is a better name than “Firefox”, “Messenger” is a better name than “Gaim”, “Paint” and “Photoshop” are better names than “Gimp” or “Krita” (“Krayon” is kool, though — in English or French), “Media Player” and “Rhythmbox” are better names than “Banshee” or “Totem”, “Minimovie” would be better than “Pitivi”.”
I kinda agree, but in KDE and Gnome the names are not that big of a problem as the applications are arranged logically in categories like “Internet” or “Graphics” instead of the software maker like “Adobe” in Windows.
Furthermore in KDE it is possible to have the program description beside the name e.g. “Gimp (Image Manipulation Program)”. It actually cannot become much clearer than this.
Edit: typo
Edited 2007-03-20 13:07
You haven’t used Gnome right?
Look at the Internet Menu. It doesn’t say “Gaim”. It says “Gaim – internet messages”.
When it comes to Firefox that point is moot because most people already know it. Same goes for Gimp now. You’d be surprised to see how many people (especially youngsters – that took me by surprise) suggesting Gimp as a replacement for Paint instead of Paint Shop Pro (which would typically be warez).
There are more applications with this name scheme. Epiphany – Web Browser. OpenOffice Writer (or in Danish – Tekstbehandling (Word Processing), Glade – User Interface Designer. Document Viewer instead of Evince (but don’t ask me why it shows up in Graphics instead of Office).
Remember this golden rule: The name of the applications is not necessarily the name showing up in the menu.
And add this one: Applications are logically sorted based in Graphical applications, Internet applications (browser, email, chat, p2p), Office applications, Sound and Video and so on.
Windows doesn’t do that. Most installers won’t even allow you to decide where to install the application in the Start Menu, resulting in a very messy Start Up menu.
“What the hell is a Beryl?” -> call it ‘Disable 3D Desktop Effects’
“What the hell is a viewport?”
“What the hell is a workspace?”
“What the hell is a window?”
“What the hell is a desktop?”
“What the hell is a folder?”
“What the hell is a driver?”
Yes, there are people who are confused or ignorant about all these terms, when you try to teach them how a modern OS works.
Hell, there are even people who don’t even know what a computer is. Does this mean we should still talk about “a machine for manipulating data according to a list of instructions” (1) instead of coming up with simpler name for these devices?
There is this thing called education, you know…
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computers
There is this thing called education, you know…
It seems a lot of people here celebrate ignorance.
“Don’t confuse new users!”
“What the hell is a workspace?”
“Advanced users should give up their sick desire to customized!”
“People don’t want options! You have to give them what you decide they want, and nothing else!”
My question is: what the hell are these people doing on a tech blog about OSes in the first place? Is this the latest incarnation of the MS Shill Brigade?
Appealing to the lowest common denominator is the domain of marketers and PR professionals, not computer enthusiasts. The truth is that secretaries (and kids!) had no problem using DOS back only twenty-five years ago…I find it hard to believe that everyone’s got that much dumber in just one generation…
Oh, and people quoting 1984 as if they actually believed the propaganda given in it (i.e. “freedom is slavery”)? I mean, WTF?!
I don’t understand your point very well. Could you please explain it to me … in latin?
What, you don’t speak Latin? There’s something called *education*, you know? What, don’t you think it is necessary?
…
Education is necessary, especially regarding computers, but lowering the barrier by cleaning up *unnecessary* concepts and lingo is most often a Good Thing. People learning their way through computers would employ their time much better by learning how to use a web browser and how email works than grokking unnecesary computer bull such as what is a “viewport”.
Useful metaphors disappear from view, because they are transparent. Contrived metaphors wrapped in kool lingo stand out and haunt you.
I don’t understand your point very well. Could you please explain it to me … in latin?
What, you don’t speak Latin? There’s something called *education*, you know? What, don’t you think it is necessary?
When the skill of speaking Latin either a) becomes as important part of my life (or work) as computers do, or b) I just become interested in Latin language I will want to (or have to) learn it.
Education is necessary, especially regarding computers, but lowering the barrier by cleaning up *unnecessary* concepts and lingo is most often a Good Thing. People learning their way through computers would employ their time much better by learning how to use a web browser and how email works than grokking unnecesary computer bull such as what is a “viewport”.
Well, as in all education you first start with basics of course. Then you move on to the more advanced topics if needed or required.
Following your logic there would never be higher edudation, and therefore no progress (and therefore nothing to teach either).
Useful metaphors disappear from view, because they are transparent. Contrived metaphors wrapped in kool lingo stand out and haunt you.
Only time can tell which metaphors are really useful. It’s not up to you to decide.
Also, “[Un]Minimization”?
What kind of word is that? What’s wrong with using “Restore”?
Nothing. But not everyone is an english speaker here. You get the idea of how the mockup should be. It doesn’t have to be exact.
I like Beryl’s configuration panel even if I m often lost in the hundred of available options. If the number of options is to high then you should give users the ability to save theirs settings under different configuration profiles to allow them to rollback changes.
My 2 cents …
Someone mentioned an alternative program already existing to setup beryl called beryl-settings-simple. I have tried and indeed it exists. You just have to fetch it which is quite easy under Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install beryl-settings-simple
Have you tried that one Eugenia? It’s quite an improvement already in terms of simplicity. What would be your comments on it? Perhaps you should criticize this one instead as an simpler setup program already exists!
I just tried it. It is really raw and not well presented (except the first screen with the hot corners). As I also said the “Advanced” button is bad for usability. Very buggy too, it tries to find some images on a hard coded /home/robb/ folder too.
I don’t like the mock-ups. Simply because they follow the same old ‘keep it simple by taking away everything I think you won’t need’ philosophy. Simplicity is not everything. Simplicity is not always the answer. Simplicity is only good if it’s done right. And, unfortunately, everybody thinks they’re right. So thank you, I’d rather be let to decide which settings options I need or not.
I think this whole discussion is kind of silly really, what exactly are we arguing about here? I think both camps could be satisfied very easily:
It’s simple: just make a nice, small and simple config tool as Eugenia suggested. beryl-settings-simple might not be it yet but at least it’s a start, no? It could be improved from there. Then, make this simple tool the default that shows up in the System/Preferences menu. There’s no need to completely get rid of the actual “beryl-settings” program, just leave it there in the system, only don’t make it available from the menu. There you go, new users will find it easy to use, and advanced users will be clever enough to figure out how to access to the more complicate one from the command line. Problem solved!
With this menu essentialy too much important stuff is stripped so i don’t like this Gnome approach. pInstead put advanced button for stuff that doesn’t fit in basic menu, this is something power users will appreciate. And after all, there should be interesting presets from which user can start tweaking, as default beryl setup isn’t very interesting (to me).
Perhaps unified theming, which besides emerald setup also sets plugins used and their parameters, could produce more usable environment and nicer overall look and feel.
The revised applet pretty much sums up why I just don’t like Gnome control panel applets.
I’m assuming that the button at the top simply disables Beryl? Pop a checkbox at the top which gives a user that on/off feel (which it is), and when it is off disable all the Beril widgets underneath.
Every other sane desktop known to man gives me a decent preview of what my desktop will look like before I go ahead and apply my settings and realise they’re no good. Good usability. Gnome just doesn’t have an area where I can choose a theme, have a preview area where I can see what it looks like, do a little bit of customisation to colours etc. see what that looks like and then apply. I mean, what the hell do most of those options look like?
The same should be done here. Beryl settings, rather than being a separate applet, should be integrated into the desktop look-and-feel applets of Gnome and KDE and show me what it will look like in advance.
Oh, and ye Gods, get rid of instant apply – certainly as it is in Gnome. Altering some settings, realising I didn’t want to alter them and then having to remember what they were previously to get back to where I was is one of the most bone headed things I’ve ever seen. With more complex applets it’s a nightmare.
However, if you have features in Beryl then they should be exposed via a decent UI without having to resort to mucking about with a text file because someone has decided that it is too difficult for you. There is some scope for coming up with the features of Beryl you’d like to expose to a user, and are most used, and then coming up with some organised, advanced dialogue boxes for additional features and plugins – and no, I don’t give a toss what Havoc Pennington says.
The fact is, with something like Beryl you’re going to have many features and additional plugins people can use, and people deserve to have a decent UI to control them. However, that shouldn’t get in the way of what people most use and want access to with Beryl.
That is not true. The instant apply feature is derived from macos. In-fact this behavior has been present in macos since before system 7, if not since its creation. People are used to their computers asking them to confirm every little thing like MS does. Why do you have to confirm if you want to change your backdrop? Just change it let me see what it looks like and if i don’t like it I can change it back. That is the approach gnome takes with (most) of their setting and in the end I think it works better and faster than having a preview pane with a preview of what your changes are going to look like when just changing the settings will work better. Its a better indicator of what your changes will look like than any preview pane will do.
The instant apply feature is derived from macos. In-fact this behavior has been present in macos since before system 7
So that makes it right? I don’t know where this bowing down before MacOS as the epitome of everything that is right comes from, but Gnome seems to have it in spades.
People are used to their computers asking them to confirm every little thing like MS does.
No. It’s just I don’t feel the need to remember everything that I’ve done and put it back to where it was. This is an utter disaster in anything approaching a moderately complex UI – and I mean moderate.
Why do you have to confirm if you want to change your backdrop? Just change it let me see what it looks like and if i don’t like it I can change it back.
Because it allows me to try multiple things at once in a short space of time – and not affect my existing settings to the point where I need to remember every little thing I’ve done to get it back the way it was.
Its a better indicator of what your changes will look like than any preview pane will do.
No actually. It’s just laziness.
I can’t understand your logic here.
No. It’s just I don’t feel the need to remember everything that I’ve done and put it back to where it was. This is an utter disaster in anything approaching a moderately complex UI – and I mean moderate.
1) With auto-apply you usually go back your latest change, not the accumulation of N, exactly because you don’t prepare N changes and previw them, you test them directly one by one . But in case you keep wandering in the configuration space and end up too far from the starting point…
2) …that’s why e.g. the Gnome theme selector has a big “Revert” button that will revert back all of the auto-applied changes. Auto-apply is not the same as auto-save.
Agreed that auto-apply is not good for each and every use case, but previews are often not enough.
In particular desktop theme settings, the case you brought forth, are a good example of this.
Will your preview feature show you the appearance of _all_ widgets? Will the icon theme you chose look good for a list view of files at sizes down to 24×24, when your preview showed them all pretty on a fake desktop and with the much greater desktop-size set?
Most probably you will end up applying and testing directly with real windows, a file selector, your favourite applications etc, or if you don’t you can save and later discover a detail that won’t work… and _then_ you’ll have to remember the combination of N changes anyway.
The main reason to avoid auto-apply in many cases is still that the apply operation might be slow or resource-intensive, and I bet that’s why it was not used more in Windows in the past, and the whole confirm-fest was started. Nowadays let’s not make the same mistakes if we can afford the better option.
No actually. It’s just laziness.
Wow, I’m all convinced now. Please explain how a whole themed desktop with open windows and applications of your choice is not better than a standardized small preview pane. Unless you were just bashing any vaguely Gnome-related UI choice. But that would be beneath you, wouldnt it?
Its harder to implement instant apply as a desktop paradigm so I’m not sure what you mean by lazy. If you can’t remember what wallpaper you were using especially with the simplicity of the wallpaper chooser that gnome uses, then I don’t know what to tell you. Its no like the options in Gnome are so plentiful that changing options back is gonna be a trial. There aren’t that many options to mess around with. Instant apply means that if you change an option it instantly applies so you know right away if it doesn’t work for you. Its doesn’t mean you change a whole bunch of options then you have to revert if you don’t like it. If you changed your mouse pointer you’ll know immediately of you don’t like it, and can go back to the previous one you had. Its actually much easier than an apply function where every change you make doesn’t get applied until you hit the button, meaning that if you change your backdrop, your screensaver, your font size, then hit apply you’re in trouble cause then you are going to have to remember how everything was. And yes I think that Apple’s did it right. People are so used to MS way that they don’t ever want to see something better in front of there faces. Windows is a usability nightmare, it has always been. Marketshare is what makes people not care. Windows doesn’t have the largest marketshare because people like it, though originally that might have been the case (with like windows 1.0), people use windows because they’ve been weened on windows since whenever they bought their pc. Bad design is bad bad design, and MS fear of losing legacy compatibility is what stifles their innovation. Win95 was NOT a well designed Gui, but it was cheaper than the alternative and Apple wasn’t bringing anything to the plate at that time due to their superiority complex, not to mention that a year later you pretty much had no choice, Linux wasn’t around to be any competition.
We need to congratulate people who are working so hard in Compiz, Beryl and X.org development (specifically in AIGLX native support). Months ago I can’t imagine my notebook with a Pentium Celeron proccessor (1.0GHz), 256MB of RAM and a simple i915 intel graphic mobile card running that kind of desktop effects so good. Its really fantastic.
I’m wondering if we will see these efects running well on yet more low costs video adpaters.
I have to agree with you. It is amazing how well Compiz works now. I never would have thought that linux would have more bling potential than Vista but it appears this is so.
Eugenia your mockup for Beryl’s setting is very nice. It wouldn’t be too difficult to string the UI together in Python. If I had some time I could probably code it in several days of work. Excellent vision of simplicity though. Fits in with the Gnome philosophy too.
I dig the mockup. But it’s still early in the project’s lifetime, and maybe they will take it and run with it.
Sure the settings dialogue needs some work. I really dont like the aims of your proposal. I can understand and accept ‘confusing’ options being off by default. Hidding ‘confusing’ features for people who wouldn’t have found them anyway… really frustrates me.
Your proposal LOOKS simple enough to keep a technophobe from panicing, I assume that’s your aim. I wouldn’t give a technophobe wobbly translucent windows. Metacity is already tailor made for their special needs.
If your target ISN’T a technophobe, give them a chance to grow. Sure, put ‘My Nanna’ options on the default tab, label it “SIMPLE OPTIONS” & ‘hide’ scary advanced buttons by putting them on other tabs. If your intended audience DO miss advanced options, they certainly aren’t going to find them in config files, man pages or gconfd
(refer also: The metacity endorsement in the article)
I used gnome as my desktop until everything got switched off by default & all the GUI dialog boxes for everything disapeared… before Metacity, Nautilus, THE RULES & needing gconfd to turn on a side bar in a file manager… It would be a shame to see another perfectly good project go off-by-default-with-no-gui.