Plasma-Netbook Mockups

[Artur Souza (MoRpHeUz)]

On Friday 09 April 2010, 17:57 Luis Fernando Planella Gonzalez wrote:
> Well, maybe I'm an exception, but I don't follow the "netbook users
> run a single application at a time". For instance, many times I have
> firefox, dolphin, konsole, amarok, gimp (yes, gimp, with a wacom
> tablet attached) running at the same time in a 10.2" netbook, with
> 1024x600 resolution and 2GB RAM. And it works well with Kubuntu Lucid
> beta.

Yep, you're an exception :) You're a geek using a netbook. Average users 
doesn't have this many applications open at the same time, specially because 
netbooks are awesome for consuming content, but horrible for creating them. 
That doesn't mean that there aren't people out there (like you :) ) that can 
handle these tasks. For you I would just recommend the regular Plasma Desktop 
or that you tune Plasma Netbook.

> * I'd rather have a task manager which shows only icons for background
> apps and the title and maximize / restore buttons for the foreground
> app replacing the current activity switcher, which takes more than
> half of the available screen width. And I agree with Markus that the
> clock should be by default in the extreme right side. It's where users
> of all platforms expect to see a clock and a system tray. Also, in the
> current form, depending on the window title length, the clock position
> changes, and keeps "jumping" when switching applications.

The clock point is a valid one that we must deal, but the task manager solution 
you're proposing just doesn't solve the main issue. That's why we are using 
Exposè for showing your tasks. Where "your" I mean the average user and not 
someone who has firefox, dolphin, konsole and gimp open (average users doesn't 
even want to know what konsole is. Average users are my mother, your 
grandmother, etc... not us ;) ).

> * About the single / double click: Search and Launch is there
> basically replacing the menu. It doesn't makes sense to make it honor
> the single / double click settings, which is supposed to be to
> navigate in files. In files, 1 click selects, 2 clicks open. In the
> SAL, 1 click does nothing. Having it honoring the setting is just like
> making Kickoff requiring double clicks to navigate in menus. This is
> the same complaint I have with system settings: if I choose double
> clicks to navigate in files, the system settings also requires double
> clicks.

The icons are just shortcuts if you like the regular menu. The first rule of 
SAL is to be a nice way to use KRunner where Marco's mom doesn't need to know 
that the web browser calls "firefox" or "arora" but she can just type "web 
browse" and then it's offered to her a list of applications.

And this "1 click does nothing" is probably just a bug. Just "1 clicking" any 
item on SAL activates it here.

> * About the "texts" in SAL: if someone which has never seen it is
> shown just a screenshot, like the first one presented in the article
> (http://kamikazow.wordpress.com/2010/04/09/plasma-netbook-mockup), he
> sees some icons on top, a search box, some other icons and widgets at
> the bottom. There is no obvious statement that: "these are the
> favorites", "here are the applications", and so on. On Kickoff,
> there's the "Favorites" and "Applications" tab. The ubuntu netbook
> remix has the sections on the left side. Having such an indication
> would be more intuitive.

+1 here. We can find a way of making it easier to discover what which area of 
SAL is meant for.

> Perhaps, I'm thinking that having an intermediate solution, with just
> borderless maximized windows (which currently can be set via config
> file), that hacked task manager and a default kickoff menu would be
> perfect for netbooks...

That's what your needs are :) Maybe that's what you should do because for your 
workflow this is just the better solution. What we are proposing with Plasma 
Netbook is a solution for average users of netbooks: moms, fathers, 
grandfathers, sons, etc...

It's even interesting that geeks get/doesn't get something about the UI that 
this kind of users just "accept" and it works very well for them (just check 
the example of P man using the netbook interface in plasma-devel archive).

Cheers,

--------------------------------------------------------------
Artur Duque de Souza
openBossa
INdT - Instituto Nokia de Tecnologia
--------------------------------------------------------------
Blog: http://blog.morpheuz.cc
PGP: 0xDBEEAAC3 @ wwwkeys.pgp.net
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