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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Descriptions Take 1 - Utilities
From:       Eron Lloyd <elloyd () lancaster ! lib ! pa ! us>
Date:       2003-08-21 20:08:20
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On Thursday August 21 2003 1:09 pm, William Leese wrote:
> Hello list,
>

Good work. One thing I've been thinking about recently is changing the KMenu 
to display both the app name and an abstraction (generic description of the 
app). XP does this somewhat in the Start Menu (see attached), yet we could 
extend this for every menu entry. Here is a starter list:

- File management (Konqueror)
- Web browsing (Konqueror)
- Email (KMail)
- Multimedia (Noatun)
- Word processing (KWord)
- Spreadsheets (KSPread)
- Presentations (KPresenter)
- Calendaring (KOrganizer)
- Addressbook (KAddressbook)
- Illustration (Karbon)
- Instant messaging (Kopete)
- Database access (Kexi)
- Text editing (Kate)

I've also attached a quick .ui file that shows what this could look like. One 
interesting thing this could do is allow for an "Application Provider" 
registry for the desktop, that allows you to assign an app to the 
abstraction, and change them to suit your needs. If you'd prefer Mozilla, 
then the registry would map it to Web browsing instead, and make this 
globally available any time a browser is needed (as well as update the MIME 
association priority). Basically this would extend the existing "Component 
Chooser" service, and new apps could have a way to interface to this service, 
ask for association, and prompt the user. This way, when my Mom asks what to 
use to send instant messages, instead of wading through the 4 or 5 installed, 
she simply selects "Instant Messaging" from the KMenu (or I could tell her to 
look for the abstraction not knowing what apps she has). The facility for the 
display of an abstraction is also already there in KMenu, so we would just 
have to connect this to the new Application Provider registry and the 
Component Chooser. As far as displaying entries in the KMenu, I prefer the 
large (32x32) icons with the abstraction (bold) over the app name. This 
reinforces the user to use the abstraction term, so if the admin changes the 
underlying app, the association still remains. Perhaps KDE & GNOME could 
cooperate on standardizing this...

Thoughts?

Eron

>
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-- 
Eron Lloyd
Technology Coordinator
Lancaster County Library
elloyd@lancaster.lib.pa.us
Phone: 717-239-2116
Fax: 717-394-3083



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