[Fedora-desktop-list] changing Gnome panel buttons

[Alexander Larsson]

On Wed, 2003-11-19 at 19:26, Kreg Steppe wrote:
> I think that since Fedora isn't geared towards Home users any longer, 
> but towards enthusiasts, and the like, I think that maybe there could be 
> a little re-engineering of the defaults. I for one, the first thing that 
> I do, is pull that icon right to my panel.

This is a misconception. Just because we're not currently good enough to
be able to be used by anyone doesn't mean we've decided to not pursue
that goal. The goal of the Fedora desktop is to (eventually) be good
enough and usable enough that anyone should be able to use a default
install and be productive.

This is important to us, since this is what would make Linux a viable
alternative to Windows and MacOS X, and this is the end goal for Fedora.
Just because computer enthusiasts are who currently most use Fedora we
shouldn't ignore this. 

The fact is that enthusiasts (like everyone on this mailing list) can
easily configure their desktop the way they want, and they all do
(differently, and very often so that it looks and works similar to some
older setup we've gotten used to). However, "normal" users (and I know
this is a bad term) typically won't ever change anything from the
default, and its therefore important that we design the defaults with
them foremost in mind. 

The terminal is an important part of Unix, and believe me, I spend most
of my time in a terminal. However, the idea of the desktop and a gui is
that you're supposed to be able to use the computer and be productive
without having to learn and remember a lot of commands. A terminal isn't
very good for this (even if its very efficient for other things), so
pushing one on the user that doesn't need it is bad.

This doesn't mean we should *hide* the terminal, we just shouldn't
expose it extra prominently in the UI. If you're a user that needs to
start a terminal often, then by default you're a user that is able to
add a terminal icon to the panel in less than 5 seconds, and chances are
that you're already not using the default setup anyway.

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 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
                   alexl at redhat.com    alla at lysator.liu.se 
He's an obese zombie barbarian gone bad. She's a beautiful wisecracking 
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