FC3 Usability Problems

[Les Mikesell]

On Sun, 2005-01-09 at 05:22, Ian Malone wrote:

>  > I shouldn't - it should let you use the same mechanism to
>  > navigate the filesystem folders that you use for everything
>  > else.  Why should it have menus?
> 
> Panel menus are not obscured by open windows.  They are therefore
> useful for usrs running more than one application.  I'll admit
> that this an elitist view, since few users will understand that
> computers can do such things, many will be confused by the
> concept, and almost none will really need it.

OK, sometimes it is useful to be able to lock a window in a certain
position and keep it always on top or auto-hidden, but I don't see
how that relates to what contents that window can contain.  If
a WM provides such frills, why can't I run any application I want
in a window with that behavior?  I do see the usefulness, just not
why it should be a special case restricted to certain functions.
I do like what happens when you drag a folder onto the KDE task
bar: it becomes a pop-up drawer for quick access, although I
don't think the contents update in real time so the usefulness is
limited. I'd also like to see a mechanism that would allow adding
applications to a different machine. Suppose you want to run all
openoffice apps for a large group of people on one server and
some other large app on a different server.  When you add a
new app, how do you make it appear in the menus of all the people
who can use it remotely?

-- 
  Les Mikesell
    les at futuresource.com