Submitted by “Looking for a way to limit users’ functionality on a publicly available machine, such as a kiosk machine for conference attendees? No one wants people trying to alter their systems for fun or malice. If you’re running the GNOME environment, you can turn to a tool called Pessulus – a lockdown manager for the GNOME desktop.”
The perfect tool for demoing Linux machines (Ubuntu being my favorite distro) to a less technical audience without the inconveniences of a live CD or a Virtual Machine.
Edited 2007-05-22 22:04
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The perfect tool for demoing Linux machines (Ubuntu being my favorite distro) to a less technical audience without the inconveniences of a live CD or a Virtual Machine.
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It’s the perfect tool for dealing with users who keep deleting their window list applet from the panel and then explain, in excruciating detail, about how:
User: You know when you click on the little line to make the window go away and…
Me: Yes, I know what you…
User: …then it’s supposed to go down to the bottom and…
Me: Yes, I know what you are…
User: …then you can click on it and…
Me: YES, I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TRYING…
User: … it will come up again? Well now…
Me: YES, I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TRYING TO TELL…
User: …it just goes away and I can’t get it back again but…
Me: (*sigh*) … yes… yes…
User: …then when I try to bring Foxfire back up again…
Me: Uh huh…
User: …it won’t let me open it…
Me: Mmmmm…
User: …and brings up that window, you know…
Me: Yes, yes…
User: and wants me to create a new silhouette…
Me: Profile?
User: Yeah! Duh!
Me: (forced smile)
User: … and then I can’t…
Me: Oh my God! Look! The copy machine is on fire!
User: What???
Me: Oops. My mistake. Must have been a reflection off the window. Now, here’s what we can do. (Click, click, click, click…) I just right-clicked on the panel, selected “Add to panel”, selected “Window List”, and then dragged it over to left end of the panel.
User: Wow! Thanks!
Well, I’m going to have to try this Pessulus.
Edited 2007-05-22 22:35
I just right-clicked on the panel, selected “Add to panel”, selected “Window List”, and then dragged it over to left end of the panel.
That’s not stupid users, that’s stupid software. If you can accidentally remove something as crucial as the window list in the taskbar, the software is broken. Let’s place some more blame on the software designers and less on the users just trying to get their work done.
Just like when my parents phoned me because Outlook was typing in all caps, without caps lock being on. Somehow they managed to activate that feature without realizing it. They are not very knowledgeable about computers, but also not stupid. Making potentially very confusing and obscure features easy to activate reeks of bad UI design.
Edited 2007-05-22 23:46
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That’s not stupid users, that’s stupid software. If you can accidentally remove something as crucial as the window list in the taskbar, the software is broken.
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I’d have to agree with you, there.
Fortunately, the problem is superficial and not deeply embedded in the design in this case.
The user should not be able to do that. Actually, I think that when it happens is when something goes wrong with gconfd-2 (old applet processes still hanging around?) and the user, when logging in, is presented with a series of popup windows saying that “Thus-and-such applet had problems starting. Would you like to delete it from the panel?”
That needs to stop. And despite the wailing and criticisms we will no doubt hear from the “Infinite Configurability” advocates, Gnome needs to be locked down even more, by default, than it is now.
Most users do not want infinite configurability. They want something that works, keeps working, and is resistant to breakage.
Until the requisite changes to the default are made, it seems I have employment. 😉
Edited 2007-05-23 00:06
> Most users do not want infinite configurability.
In discussions like this I always wonder how some kind of “extensible configurability” would perform. I mean a system where you can only configure the crucial things by default, but can extend configurability such that (up to) everything can be changed (possibly with rising difficulty in activating the advanced options, such that newbies don’t activate them accidently). Oh, and of course with sensible defaults set for all options.
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I mean a system where you can only configure the crucial things by default, but can extend configurability such that (up to) everything can be changed (possibly with rising difficulty in activating the advanced options, such that newbies don’t activate them accidently).
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That sounds like “user levels”. I personally like the idea a great deal. But usually when I mention it around here there’s no shortage of people to tell me what a horrible idea it is and explain to me about how “Usability Experts” proved long ago what a crappy and unworkable thing user levels are.
I still say the first of the popular desktops to implement the idea is going to steal the show, though.
That’s not stupid users, that’s stupid software. If you can accidentally remove something as crucial as the window list in the taskbar, the software is broken. Let’s place some more blame on the software designers and less on the users just trying to get their work done.
Are you kidding? The software is broken because it allows you to customize it? Is this Gnome we’re talking about here? What would you have them do, make the window list non-removable? Or have us jump through hoops and a bunch of “Are you sure?” dialogues? A user right clicks on a widget and depresses “Remove from panel” and it’s the developers fault that the user “accidentally” removed it? The option to “Remove from panel” is neither confusing nor obscure.
Pessulus was made for people like this. The kind that just get on a computer and start pressing things and generally screwing everything up. Maybe the Dellbuntu should use this and ship with the desktop locked down by default.
“A user right clicks on a widget and depresses “Remove from panel” and it’s the developers fault that the user “accidentally” removed it? The option to “Remove from panel” is neither confusing nor obscure.”
What about this: “I just deleted my files. I used safe delete because I wanted to be sure they are gone. Now they are gone. How can I bring them back?” 🙂
Maybe this option should not be that obvious…
“Pessulus was made for people like this. The kind that just get on a computer and start pressing things and generally screwing everything up. Maybe the Dellbuntu should use this and ship with the desktop locked down by default.”
I don’t exactly know which audience Dell targets its Linux based PCs at, but maybe you’re right. It should be easy to configure things, easy, understandable, logical and obvious. Settings to make a system unusable, unstable and malfunctioning should not be that easy.
A user right clicks on a widget and depresses “Remove from panel” and it’s the developers fault that the user “accidentally” removed it?
Yes. Probably. If you’ve never worked with people new to computers before, you won’t understand it, but using a mouse is quite difficult. I’m not familiar with what exactly the right click menu looks like on the gnome panel, but if the “remove from panel” entry is the closest entry to the mouse when you right click, then the design is broken. Either the entry should be moved further away so it is harder to accidentally click, or the panel should be locked by default, and if you want to change it you have to right click and unlock it first (this is possible in KDE, not sure about Gnome).
How many times do you remove applets from your panel? Why is such a rarely used feature so easy to accidentally activate? These are questions you have to ask yourself when designing a UI to activate a feature.
Just like in Windows, I often see people accidentally rename a file instead of opening it because they didn’t double click fast enough. Or dragging something out of the start menu instead of opening it. That doesn’t indicate stupid users (although that is an easy cop-out for developers), that indicates something wrong with the software. It’s easy to fix these problems, and despite your kneejerk reaction, does not mean you have to dumb down the interface.
Actually the ‘flexibility’ afforded to you of whether to use “Window List” vs. “Window Selector” or simply a dock/panel combination should not be limited because some users don’t know what to do with that option.
How well Pessulus works?
There is nothing broken about letting people remove a non-critical component like this. You are obviously a windows user… A “window list in the taskbar” is NOT a necessary feature for proper operation of Gnome. In fact I would wager that there is quite a few users out there who simply don’t have that particular applet turned on at all – and they can manage quite well without it.
Heh, I never tried it, but what does the “minimize” button do after removing the window-list? Will it automatically change the behavior to “roll” (I don’t know the english word for the “getting small so that you just see the upper window-border”)
Most users who would be using the kiosk mode terminals (that Pessulus is mainly meant for) probably do think that a window list in the taskbar IS a standard thing of OS, and they would probably find it very odd if it was missing. Sure, a relatively advanced user who knows what she’s doing could also remove the window list if it was not necessary for her, but Pessulus is not really even meant for such situations. The window list, that allows you to easily see and find all the windows that are open, is also intuitive enough that the feature is considred useful not only in MS Windows but also in Gnome, KDE, Fluxbox, XFCE, etc.etc. So it is certainly not a Windows-only thing.
Anyway, if the user interface needs to very simple only, of course also the window list could be removed, so if, in the default model, the user would only need one app and window all the time, maybe a browser, and nothing more.
As to Pessulus in general:
Public Internet (and other) terminals at libraries, schools, hotels, cafes, kindergartens, hospitals etc. (you name it) are becoming more and more popular and widely used. With the flexibility (and cheap price) of Linux & BSD, and with the availability of software like Pessulus, it is one more major opportunity for Linux and BSD to gain more marketshare and users around the globe. For example, many kids might actually get maybe their very first touch to computers and operating systems when using such easy to use terminals.
A window list is completely unnecessary for a compiz enabled desktop. Plugins like scale and miniwin provide better functionality.
… I was just looking into that the other day. Now if only you could find a article describing how to setup thin clients in a windows environment then I will be fully covered.
actually what bring power to linux and its applications is the possibility to change everything you want and even, deny this behavior to some users.