console/desktop integration

[C. Gatzemeier]

Am Sunday 08 August 2004 14:23 schrieb Lars Hallberg:

> Humen understandable (and localised names) shuld be the most prominent.
> But the 'real' names and location of things shuld be avalible! Users
> shuld not only be asisted in doing stuf, they shuld be asisted in
> lerning stuff!

Second that. 
Say it like "First Network Connection (/dev/eth0): retrieve settings from 
server (DHCP)" including the technical term. People will happily first ignore 
the acronyms, but pick them up naturally over time.

Avoid extremely leaky abstraktions, where new users get lost the moment they 
dare to take the second step in looking at their computer. Even if they just 
happen to look over the shoulder of their "computer" guy there should be 
something recognizeable, something to discover.


Also, better than taking a pure GUI stand and "glossing" things over ist 
stepping back a moment and striving to code and use real system solutions 
where possible. (Depending and working on platform.)

Its about the mental model in desktop and system use, they should be 
compatible and mutual extendable.

Every computer user absolutely must understand a hierachical tree structure 
anyway. The failure novices often do is that they try to remember every step 
and anything disconnectedly. The UI should help them to learn a structure 
they can build upon. Its all right to cut down the standard view but let it 
assemble /home /media and /tmp

Some examples:

-- Extra desktop level "delete to trash bin" implementation - 
or desktop interface to systemwide libtrash.

-- Lots of independent hardcoded config tools that all try to be clever in 
understanding and manipulating files -
or frontends to the users taste interfacing to a configuration handling 
system.

-- Desktop level virtual filesystems -
or a system level (user-mode) fs.

Cheers,
Christian