Proposal: Too similar application names

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

On Thu, 2011-06-02 at 09:54 -0400, Vitezslav Humpa wrote:
> The way KDE application launcher handles this also provides nice
> example for a design solution to this problem. They use a
> "Generic" (e.g. Terminal) field to describe the application primarily
> and have the name of the actual binary (e.g. Konsole) present in small
> letters when the generic name is not unique.

I happen to think this is the wrong way round. For someone who's not
sure what they want, it might be marginally better, but for anyone who
already knows, i.e. for most people most of the time after learning it,
it just produces a momentary hesitation every time you use it.

For example, I have *never* thought to myself "Oh, I need to fire up the
Groupware Suite". I just look for Evolution, but it's in small letters
in a grey font. Much better would be to have Evolution as the main menu
item, with Groupware Suite in a small grey font for those who don't know
what it is (think of it as a poor man's ToolTip).

There's a difference between easy to use and easy to learn. We would do
well to favour the former over the latter whenever there's a conflict.

poc