Re: Application roles - first steps

[Stefan Urbanek]

On 2004-02-20 13:04:38 +0100 Enrico Sersale <enrico@imago.ro> wrote:

> On 2004-02-18 22:31:09 +0200 Stefan Urbanek <stefan@agentfarms.net> wrote:
<snip>
> > You can also add the role into inspector, if it is no problem (it should be 
> > shown there regardles of user preferences). However, the point of adding it 
> > directly to the viewer and enabling it by default was, that users can see 
> > that something like roles exists. For the time being, user defaults can be 
> > used to configure that, no need for preferences UI, if it is a problem.
> >
> > Is that possible?
>
> Yes, but I don't know if it is a good idea to show something more then the 
> file name in a browser column or under an icon. I think that we should always 
> use inspectors for these kinds of information.

Why not? Browser/icon should show information that is most relevant to the 
user. It does not have to reflect implmenetation, which is filename in this 
case. You do not need filename for application, you need application 
function/name, which is in this case described by its role and optionaly real 
name. Well, most of users do need this. And there sill will be an option for 
showing filenames.

There is no point of having it only in inspector. What can be achieved by 
direct role displaying is faster orientation of the user. It's like thumbnails 
of images: you see what is in the image immediately without opening it. 
Situation: user wants to start a web bowser. He opens /Local/Applications 
folder and looks there. What he sees are many .app files with names like 
Gimp.app, Mozilla.app, Gaim.app (i'm taking existing app names as examples). He 
well not know, what the applications do just from those names (i'm not even 
talking about non-descriptive application icons). He can try launching it and 
see what it does, but that is really waste of time and resources. You suggest 
looking in the inspector panel. Sure, he can do that, but he will have to 
traverse through all application icons to find what he looks for. If 
application role was displayed somewhere around app icon or in the browser 
cell, user can immetiately spot what he is looking for.

<rest removed>

Stefan Urbanek
--
http://stefan.agentfarms.net

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you 
win.
- Mahatma Gandhi