I posted similarly to fedora-desktop list, but I thought it may be worth spreading this discussion to a wider audience.
In particular, can we/fedora consider using better menu names now, so users know which apps are really behind some generic (and mysterious?) items in menus(1).
I'm aware of the history that brought us to this point, and using the generic items, but I think it's time to re-evaluate the decision, especially in the context of fedora's various spins.
-- Rex
(1) For example, Internet->Contacts (evolution) Internet->Email (evolution) Internet->Internet Messenger (pidgin) Internet->IRC (xchat) Office->Calendar (evolution) Office->Word Processor (oowriter) Office->Spreadsheet (oocalc)
On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 09:05:16 -0500 Rex Dieter rdieter@math.unl.edu wrote:
I posted similarly to fedora-desktop list, but I thought it may be worth spreading this discussion to a wider audience.
In particular, can we/fedora consider using better menu names now, so users know which apps are really behind some generic (and mysterious?) items in menus(1).
I'm aware of the history that brought us to this point, and using the generic items, but I think it's time to re-evaluate the decision, especially in the context of fedora's various spins.
Is a tooltip popup with what the application name actually is not enough? We have to satisfy two groups here, those that are looking for an "email client" and those that are looking for "thunderbird". I would think being helpful to those just looking for a task to do would slightly outweigh somebody looking for a specific application and could hover for a second to see if this is the application they are looking for that does the task listed?
Jesse Keating wrote:
Is a tooltip popup with what the application name actually is not enough? We have to satisfy two groups here, those that are looking for an "email client" and those that are looking for "thunderbird".
That's insufficient, imo, and besides, runs a bit counter to the desktop-entry-spec, which defines these relevant entities as:
Name Specific name of the application, for example "Mozilla". GenericName Generic name of the application, for example "Web Browser". Comment Tooltip for the entry, for example "View sites on the Internet", should not be redundant with Name or GenericName.
For the record, the spec handles this, where Name=Thunderbird GenericName=Email client Unfortunately, gnome doesn't support/implement the (optional) GenericName part yet, which is part of what led us to the point we are now.
A compromise for now would be include GenericName in Name, e.g. Name=Thunderbird Email which is what some apps have already implemented (like thunderbird).
-- Rex
Le Lun 17 septembre 2007 16:15, Jesse Keating a écrit :
On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 09:05:16 -0500 Rex Dieter rdieter@math.unl.edu wrote:
I'm aware of the history that brought us to this point, and using the generic items, but I think it's time to re-evaluate the decision, especially in the context of fedora's various spins.
Is a tooltip popup with what the application name actually is not enough? We have to satisfy two groups here, those that are looking for an "email client" and those that are looking for "thunderbird".
And one could change the menu policy from one to the other or a combo of both if GNOME apps didn't hijack Name with what the spec says should go in genericname
Even if we chose to retain the current behaviour as default it has no business being implemented through a gross f.d.o. spec violation.
On Mon, 2007-09-17 at 17:00 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
Le Lun 17 septembre 2007 16:15, Jesse Keating a écrit :
On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 09:05:16 -0500 Rex Dieter rdieter@math.unl.edu wrote:
I'm aware of the history that brought us to this point, and using the generic items, but I think it's time to re-evaluate the decision, especially in the context of fedora's various spins.
How do Fedoras various spins change the circumstances that lead to the decision ?
Is a tooltip popup with what the application name actually is not enough? We have to satisfy two groups here, those that are looking for an "email client" and those that are looking for "thunderbird".
And one could change the menu policy from one to the other or a combo of both if GNOME apps didn't hijack Name with what the spec says should go in genericname
No, thats just broken. If you change the combo, you suddenly get five "Email Client" entries in the menu.
Combining name and genericname programmatically just doesn't work from an i18n perspective.
Matthias Clasen wrote:
On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 09:05:16 -0500 Rex Dieter rdieter@math.unl.edu wrote:
I'm aware of the history that brought us to this point, and using the generic items, but I think it's time to re-evaluate the decision, especially in the context of fedora's various spins.
How do Fedoras various spins change the circumstances that lead to the decision ?
Say Fedora Spin X decided to start naming all their "default" apps similarly. More specifically, wow would you react if the KDE spin started calling kmail "Email client" or kword "Word Processor" in the menus too? Wouldn't you agree this is a bad path to follow and/or a bad precedent to set?
-- Rex
On 9/17/07, Rex Dieter rdieter@math.unl.edu wrote:
I posted similarly to fedora-desktop list, but I thought it may be worth spreading this discussion to a wider audience.
In particular, can we/fedora consider using better menu names now, so users know which apps are really behind some generic (and mysterious?) items in menus(1).
The last discussion on this was here: http://marc.info/?l=fedora-desktop-list&m=118530967420021&w=2
Owen's suggested solution was:
"OK, back to the present: My advise for the X-Chat is to make it match how we do a lot of other .desktop files now: do "X-Chat IRC Client" like "Firefox Web Browser" and so forth."
Le Lun 17 septembre 2007 17:30, Colin Walters a écrit :
Owen's suggested solution was:
"OK, back to the present: My advise for the X-Chat is to make it match how we do a lot of other .desktop files now: do "X-Chat IRC Client" like "Firefox Web Browser" and so forth."
However this is not name or genericname but something like descriptivename Can't the gnome folks agree with the kde folks on a spec both would implement?
Colin Walters wrote:
On 9/17/07, Rex Dieter rdieter@math.unl.edu wrote:
I posted similarly to fedora-desktop list, but I thought it may be worth spreading this discussion to a wider audience.
In particular, can we/fedora consider using better menu names now, so users know which apps are really behind some generic (and mysterious?) items in menus(1).
The last discussion on this was here: http://marc.info/?l=fedora-desktop-list&m=118530967420021&w=2
Owen's suggested solution was:
"OK, back to the present: My advise for the X-Chat is to make it match how we do a lot of other .desktop files now: do "X-Chat IRC Client" like "Firefox Web Browser" and so forth."
I can live with that compromise (which is certainly better than the status quo). I'm wondering why maintainers of affected packages didn't follow the suggestion, but maybe not everybody had followed the discussion close enough.
I'll get to work filing bugs against affected packages.
-- Rex
On Mon, 2007-09-17 at 09:05 -0500, Rex Dieter wrote:
In particular, can we/fedora consider using better menu names now, so users know which apps are really behind some generic (and mysterious?) items in menus(1).
You know, I can't help but agreeing that the presented names need to be improved somehow. I keep stumbling over the ambiguity over and over again in various situations. The menus are one thing, but they're also presented in other things like right-clicking a nautilus icon and choosing an "Open With <generic-name>" option. On several occasions, I've accidentally or without thinking clicked on the wrong application option. Even though I've trained myself to "slow down" and try to find the right option because it's not readily presented, I inadvertently click on the wrong selection.
Luckily it hasn't resulted in catastrophic results (clicking the wrong option doesn't result in deleted files or anything like that), but it's certainly irritating on slow machines to wait for a process to finish starting up before I can shut it down.
And at that point in time when I feel irritated, I just can't help but wish that the menu option was clearer to begin with. In the course of a working day, I get up to speed and start doing things one after the other like it was second-nature to me (kind of like touch-typing) only to get tripped up by ambiguous options. For instance, looking at my Applications -> Sound & Video menu, it only takes me a fraction of a second to realize whether an application is relevant to my current context when I see the application name. Seeing two "Movie Player" options makes me pause and try to figure out which is which.
Can't we do something like "<action> <language-specific-preposition> <application>" (ie. "Play Multimedia with Totem", "View Graphical Images with gimp", "Edit Graphical Images with gimp" or whatever the sequence is in other languages). Or perhaps "<action> (<application>)" like "Play Movies (Totem)" --
Richi Plana
On Mon, 2007-09-17 at 12:52 -0600, Richi Plana wrote:
Can't we do something like "<action> <language-specific-preposition> <application>" (ie. "Play Multimedia with Totem", "View Graphical Images with gimp", "Edit Graphical Images with gimp" or whatever the sequence is in other languages). Or perhaps "<action> (<application>)" like "Play Movies (Totem)"
Any such attempts are broken i18n-wise. The only thing that works for translation is complete strings.
On Mon, 2007-09-17 at 15:05 -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
On Mon, 2007-09-17 at 12:52 -0600, Richi Plana wrote:
Can't we do something like "<action> <language-specific-preposition> <application>" (ie. "Play Multimedia with Totem", "View Graphical Images with gimp", "Edit Graphical Images with gimp" or whatever the sequence is in other languages). Or perhaps "<action> (<application>)" like "Play Movies (Totem)"
Any such attempts are broken i18n-wise. The only thing that works for translation is complete strings.
I felt that I should maybe write down how I think this can be addressed.
Changing translations is something that needs to happen upstream, and needs to have buy-in. The most realistic plan of attack, imo is to add a new field, e.g
DescriptiveName
and define that the value can contain placeholders for the name and generic name. Then we can add
DescriptiveName=%N - %G
or similar, which will work for a good number of locales, and still allow
DescriptiveName[de]=Donnervogel, bringt die Post
to override on a per-locale basis.
As you can see, this requires a desktop entry spec addition, unless you want to go X-Fedora-, which I wouldn't recommend.
Also, it may need gnome-menus api additions. In any case, this is not F8 material.
On 19.09.2007 08:16, Matthias Clasen wrote:
On Mon, 2007-09-17 at 15:05 -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
On Mon, 2007-09-17 at 12:52 -0600, Richi Plana wrote:
Can't we do something like "<action> <language-specific-preposition> <application>" (ie. "Play Multimedia with Totem", "View Graphical Images with gimp", "Edit Graphical Images with gimp" or whatever the sequence is in other languages). Or perhaps "<action> (<application>)" like "Play Movies (Totem)"
Any such attempts are broken i18n-wise. The only thing that works for translation is complete strings.
I felt that I should maybe write down how I think this can be addressed.
Changing translations is something that needs to happen upstream, and needs to have buy-in. The most realistic plan of attack, imo is to add a new field, e.g
DescriptiveName
and define that the value can contain placeholders for the name and generic name. Then we can add
DescriptiveName=%N - %G
or similar, which will work for a good number of locales, and still allow
DescriptiveName[de]=Donnervogel, bringt die Post
to override on a per-locale basis.
As you can see, this requires a desktop entry spec addition, unless you want to go X-Fedora-, which I wouldn't recommend.
Also, it may need gnome-menus api additions. In any case, this is not F8 material.
In addition: wouldn't it make sense to display the DescriptiveName normally if just one app of that kind is installed? E.g. if just Evolution was installed -> you just find "E-Mail-Client" in your menu. If both Thunderbird and Evo are installed display "Evolution (E-Mail-Client) " and "Thunderbird (E-Mail-Client)" or something like that?
Just my 2 cent.
CU knird
On Wed, 19 Sep 2007 08:34:09 +0200 Thorsten Leemhuis fedora@leemhuis.info wrote:
In addition: wouldn't it make sense to display the DescriptiveName normally if just one app of that kind is installed? E.g. if just Evolution was installed -> you just find "E-Mail-Client" in your menu. If both Thunderbird and Evo are installed display "Evolution (E-Mail-Client) " and "Thunderbird (E-Mail-Client)" or something like that?
Just my 2 cent.
I think that would be pretty terrible, as your menu would change if you happened to add another app.
On Wed, 2007-09-19 at 08:34 +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
In addition: wouldn't it make sense to display the DescriptiveName normally if just one app of that kind is installed? E.g. if just Evolution was installed -> you just find "E-Mail-Client" in your menu. If both Thunderbird and Evo are installed display "Evolution (E-Mail-Client) " and "Thunderbird (E-Mail-Client)" or something like that?
Personally, I think it's best to be consistent all throughout so as not to confuse users when apps are added. Besides, would you believe that some people these days are more familiar with the term Firefox than they are with "browser" or even the phrase "Browse the Internet"?! "Internet" would probably suffice, but that would answer to a lot of other things, too. Sad. --
Richi Plana