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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Semantic Icons
From:       Eduard =?iso-8859-1?q?Pert=ED=F1ez_i_Juncosa?= <eduard () pertinez ! net>
Date:       2006-02-13 11:17:23
Message-ID: 200602131217.23488.eduard () pertinez ! net
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Just a little thing for analisys.

Lots of times I need semantic icons. Mostly for folders.

We have some: Video folder, audio folder,... and they always are a folder Icon 
with a little content icon incrusted into.

Ok, my idea is: Why don't we make it generic? Why can't we choose the folder 
and the icon incrusted into as two different things?

It would be great if I could assign a folder an Icon which is a folder and 
then inside my favorite tv station logo, so I clearly say that folder 
contains recorded tv programs.

I think every SVG folder theme should include an special box place where to 
add those Icons (probably two of them).

In a two boxes aproximation we could put actions inside. For example, we could 
make an special folder with incoming tv programs (an arrow woud indicate it), 
tv programs to record (a red dot close to the tv logo icon?) or programs to 
trash folder.

The action little box would be a little like the actually existing soft link 
indication.

Thanks,

Eduard Pertíñez
http://www.bredax.com

> I'm not making any demands here, far far from it. I'm not saying that "KDE
> needs to do this NOW!". Like I said: I had an idea that I thought would be
> interesting. And I decided to share that idea to get more opinions. And I
> fully understood that many people would propably oppose the idea. And while
> some of the counterarguments/questions are valid ("How do you navigate the
> menu if you have lots of content?"), some are rather overblown ("You
> haven't done any usability-testing on this idea of yours, and I therefore
> can't accept it") or rely on semantics ("Kmenu is an application!").
>
> > It could have been different,
> > but you keep defending "grand idea" without making any concession to your
> > concept, and this doesn't seem right to me.
>
> Well, the very first "concession" to my concept would have been to drop the
> entire concept ("Instead of having a content-menu, why not have a
> content-manager instead?"). Content-managers are nothing new,
> Appeal-website has a section about them. I suggested a different approach
> to using content, instead of separate content-manager (although such an app
> could exist in this idea just fine). And then I'm expected to make
> "concessions" that basically kill the entire idea, and return us back to
> "Applications and
> content-manager"-phase? Isn't it natural that I opposed such a
> "concession"? my whole idea was about something different, so I naturally
> opposed the counteridea that would basically kill the core-concept of my
> idea. And when doing so, I helped this thread to become a really long
> discussion about this approach to content.
>
> How could there have been any fruitful discussion about the subject, if one
> of the first things we would have done would be to kill the idea, and
> return us back from where we started from? How can there be any discussion
> in case like that?
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 13:14:54 +0200
> From: Janne Ojaniemi <janne.ojaniemi@nbl.fi>
> Subject: Re: Application-centric GUI vs. Content-centric GUI.
> To: KDE Usability Project <kde-usability@kde.org>
> Message-ID: <200602121314.54300.janne.ojaniemi@nbl.fi>
> Content-Type: text/plain;  charset="utf-8"
>
> On Tuesday 07 February 2006 22:36, Chi Shang Cheng wrote:
> > 2006/2/7, Diego Moya <turingt@gmail.com>:
> > > I'm afraid there's going a communication problem in here; as far as I
> > > understand, Janne Ojaniemi and Chi Shang Cheng are saying almost the
> > > same things, i.e. they're describing a very similar final solution.
> > >
> > > Problem is, both of you are describing the desired design in terms of
> > > the operating system (applications, folders, files) or with extremely
> > > vague terms (browser, content-centric) which don't exist in users'
> > > mental models.
> >
> > I was trying to convince him of that. In my most humble attempt...
>
> There's no need to treat me like an idiot, you know. Yes, we are both
> talking of content-centric approach to the problem. But our solutions are
> different (and there's nothing wrong with that), and that is what the
> discussion has been about. You want a content-browser. And while I'm not
> opposed to such an app, I would rather see content at the forefront of the
> UI, and not something that you access through yet another application.
>
> I'm sidetracking a bit here but... You said that Finder starts
> automatically in OS X. Well, it doesn't, really. Yes, it runs in the
> background, but the application-window is not displayed by default. So it's
> not "prominently displayed to the user". I think that Finder is more or
> less comparable to explorer.exe on Windows. Explorer runs all the time, but
> it's not obvious to the user.
>
> And if you want (in case of OS X) Finder to be content-centric and obvious
> to the user, then that means that the whole UI would be content-centric,
> just like I suggested. There IS the "Finder, the filemanager" (the
> app-window) but it's not displayed by default.
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 17:05:59 +0100
> From: "Friedrich W. H. Kossebau" <Friedrich.W.H@kossebau.de>
> Subject: Browsing of content (was: Re: Application-centric GUI vs.
> 	Content-centric GUI)
> To: KDE Usability Project <kde-usability@kde.org>
> Message-ID: <200602121706.00188.Friedrich.W.H@kossebau.de>
> Content-Type: text/plain;  charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Am Dienstag, 7. Februar 2006 20:34, schrieb I?aki:
> > - Press the "my Content" buttom and the "content-window" appears.
> > - Click in the lef colum over "Contacts" so in the center column there
> > appear my contacts (maybe categorized by "friends", "office",
> > "family"...).
>
> And how would you organize this categorisation? By a filter at the top of
> the center column perhaps?
>
> > - When doing a simple click in a contact it is selected and the info and
> > actions about him appear in the right column ("personal data", "MSN,
> > Jabber status", "chat with him", "send email", "call VoIP"...).
>
> And how to handle more than one email address?
>
> I fear it will not always possible to deal with everything by a three
> column approach... Or?
>
> > Isn't it better than a hateful cascade-menu?
>
> Depends on the input device mastery:
>
> With my experimental mouse oriented contacts menu for kicker (shameless
> plug: http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=34479) all it takes
> is a mouse click at the beginning, than some movements, and one final
> click. Less diverse action needed (think task switches).
>
> I agree that the cascading menus can be quite annoying. But perhaps some
> better logic for the opening and switching of the menus (triggering,
> timing, delays) and handling of menus larger than the screen height could
> improve the situation? I feel Nextstep's (as seen in Gnustep) menu concept
> is quite usable...
> Or does a Finder alike concept with framed menus work better?
> Accessibilty support would be interesting, too, and if it was only for the
> keyboard-only freaks :P
>
> Regards
> Friedrich, usability layman ;)
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
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>
> End of kde-usability Digest, Vol 35, Issue 19
> *********************************************
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