Hi,
I'd love to know what people think of ggreeter. For those who don't know, ggreeter is the window that is displayed the first time you log in. And you generally don't see it anymore.
To see it again, just launch 'ggreeter' in the run dialog or a terminal.
I'd love to know what people think about it: is it useful? Should we keep it? Should we remove it?
My personal opinion is that we should remove it and display the relevant information in some other places (in a help menu, eg). Note that removing it also removes some "direct branding", but I wouldn't think it's an issue.
Vincent
On Thu, 2008-08-07 at 15:07 +0200, Vincent Untz wrote:
Hi,
I'd love to know what people think of ggreeter. For those who don't know, ggreeter is the window that is displayed the first time you log in. And you generally don't see it anymore.
To see it again, just launch 'ggreeter' in the run dialog or a terminal.
I'd love to know what people think about it: is it useful? Should we keep it? Should we remove it?
My personal opinion is that we should remove it and display the relevant information in some other places (in a help menu, eg). Note that removing it also removes some "direct branding", but I wouldn't think it's an issue.
I think it's just not useful in it's current state. It's potentially helpful information and collection of links, but it's also information overload for new users who are just discovering their openSUSE desktop.
I think a good idea would be to make it a tool to set up online updates, since that has to be done at the first login anyway. The branding sticks, and a important firstboot task gets done. Also, it could have a link to register the boxed edition for support.
I have no idea if that could even be done through the greeter, but it just popped into my head, so I'd thought I'd try it out.
On Thu, 2008-08-07 at 09:52 -0500, Kevin Dupuy wrote:
On Thu, 2008-08-07 at 15:07 +0200, Vincent Untz wrote:
Hi,
I'd love to know what people think of ggreeter. For those who don't know, ggreeter is the window that is displayed the first time you log in. And you generally don't see it anymore.
To see it again, just launch 'ggreeter' in the run dialog or a terminal.
I'd love to know what people think about it: is it useful? Should we keep it? Should we remove it?
My personal opinion is that we should remove it and display the relevant information in some other places (in a help menu, eg). Note that removing it also removes some "direct branding", but I wouldn't think it's an issue.
I think it's just not useful in it's current state. It's potentially helpful information and collection of links, but it's also information overload for new users who are just discovering their openSUSE desktop.
I think a good idea would be to make it a tool to set up online updates, since that has to be done at the first login anyway. The branding sticks, and a important firstboot task gets done. Also, it could have a link to register the boxed edition for support.
I have no idea if that could even be done through the greeter, but it just popped into my head, so I'd thought I'd try it out. --
The funny thing about greeters is that people do consider it important/interesting but they'll get back to it later. I do that here on openSUSE, and on my XP Tablet laptops that I've had for several years, I know there's lots of cool info about how to use Tablet features, but I keep telling myself, I'll read it later. As a consequence, I never disable it, it keeps popping up at startup, but never read for several years now.
People have an inherent tendency to try first, read later. As such, I would probably put it in Main Menu rather than as a pop up.
Bryen
The funny thing about greeters is that people do consider it important/interesting but they'll get back to it later. I do that here on openSUSE, and on my XP Tablet laptops that I've had for several years, I know there's lots of cool info about how to use Tablet features, but I keep telling myself, I'll read it later. As a consequence, I never disable it, it keeps popping up at startup, but never read for several years now.
People have an inherent tendency to try first, read later. As such, I would probably put it in Main Menu rather than as a pop up.
The funny thing about people is, they keep telling themselves as well as others that their shortcomings apply to everybody else in the universe.
If greeter has useful information, it should be moved to a help file and greeting should be dropped. If it has no useful information it should just be dropped. If Bryen didn't read his greeter for several years in succession, it's because he simply doesn't need it, no matter what he is telling himself about missed occasions.
Casual
On Thu, 2008-08-07 at 21:20 +0200, Casual J. Programmer wrote:
The funny thing about greeters is that people do consider it important/interesting but they'll get back to it later. I do that here on openSUSE, and on my XP Tablet laptops that I've had for several years, I know there's lots of cool info about how to use Tablet features, but I keep telling myself, I'll read it later. As a consequence, I never disable it, it keeps popping up at startup, but never read for several years now.
People have an inherent tendency to try first, read later. As such, I would probably put it in Main Menu rather than as a pop up.
The funny thing about people is, they keep telling themselves as well as others that their shortcomings apply to everybody else in the universe.
If greeter has useful information, it should be moved to a help file and greeting should be dropped. If it has no useful information it should just be dropped. If Bryen didn't read his greeter for several years in succession, it's because he simply doesn't need it, no matter what he is telling himself about missed occasions.
Casual
In general, I agree with your philosophy. However, to point out several things...
To use the "greeter" on my Tablet as an example again, in fact, I very rarely utilize the true power of TabletPc's. I always tell myself, yeah I'll learn, but in reality, haven't yet. Does it mean I don't need it? Sure, I'm doing just fine without it. Does it mean I'm fully maximizing my TabletPC? Yes to that too. So, whether a person reads the info in greeter or not, doesn't necessarily mean whether they need/should know that info or not.
The other thing, you mentioned that content in there should go into Help files. I see the Greeter as more of a "Did you know...?" function than a help function. People don't go to Help to learn new things about openSUSE. They go there to learn how to fix a problem they currently have.
So, the real question is, where should the information go where it can be relevantly accessed? We seem to all agree that the greeter has a psychological effect of being ignored, yet the information within greeter appears to be useful to many people.
Or, should we find a radically and philosphically different approach to introducing our users to features and such? I kind of think a "Did you know...?" icon in Main Menu might be more psychologically eye catching.
Or maybe, we should do a "Tip of the Day" concept of some sort (which I also tend to ignore and turn off.) I don't know. :-)
Bryen
Or maybe, we should do a "Tip of the Day" concept of some sort (which I also tend to ignore and turn off.) I don't know. :-)
Bryen,
Not sure if it really is necessary to start a major philosophical discussion on every single bit of an operating system.
The keys to most issues are ease of use and productivity. ( I try to envision busy people who use their computer as a tool to get something done )
Information that gets in your way is usually not regarded as helpful, rather to the contrary.
One thing I like about Windows / Linux is the informative slide show presented during installation. Why is that ? It makes my wait time less painful.
So in addition to offering context sensitive help ( by pressing F1, right click on an item, or simlpy activate a question mark that can be moved over objects of interest ), which is my best bet ( not talking for others here ), I would find it clever if _useful_ information was offered during lengthy operations, like booting :-) , that keep people at the keyboard while not allowing them to concentrate on other stuff. Much like the video screens in tube stations, where people watch the most useless crap just because there is nothing else to do, or, if you like it better, the tons of food eaten in airplanes for the same reason. ( nobody seems to offer exercises instead )
Have a lot of fun...
Casual
On Fri, 2008-08-08 at 08:40 +0200, Casual J. Programmer wrote:
Or maybe, we should do a "Tip of the Day" concept of some sort (which I also tend to ignore and turn off.) I don't know. :-)
Bryen,
Not sure if it really is necessary to start a major philosophical discussion on every single bit of an operating system.
The keys to most issues are ease of use and productivity. ( I try to envision busy people who use their computer as a tool to get something done )
Information that gets in your way is usually not regarded as helpful, rather to the contrary.
One thing I like about Windows / Linux is the informative slide show presented during installation. Why is that ? It makes my wait time less painful.
So in addition to offering context sensitive help ( by pressing F1, right click on an item, or simlpy activate a question mark that can be moved over objects of interest ), which is my best bet ( not talking for others here ), I would find it clever if _useful_ information was offered during lengthy operations, like booting :-) , that keep people at the keyboard while not allowing them to concentrate on other stuff. Much like the video screens in tube stations, where people watch the most useless crap just because there is nothing else to do, or, if you like it better, the tons of food eaten in airplanes for the same reason. ( nobody seems to offer exercises instead )
this makes sense, when gnome-session is loading all apps, some tips could be provided, it would make our login time the same, but people won't complain that much :-)
On Thu, 2008-08-07 at 14:36 -0500, Bryen wrote:
Or maybe, we should do a "Tip of the Day" concept of some sort (which I also tend to ignore and turn off.) I don't know. :-)
that sounds a good idea, and we indeed have everything that is needed already in place. That is, we have a MOTD (Message of the Day) patch in gnome-session that reads /etc/motd. We could either make the system update /etc/motd every once in a while with useful information (it now always contains 'Have fun') or have a system wide file with that useful information that is read by the gnome-session patch at startup.
Although that sounds a lot like the Tips app there was (or already is) in KDE.
I would really prefer to have something like the old doorman, an app that, apart from shwowing useful information (which it could do), it offers a way to quickly setup the system (with tips on how to do change those settings later, like ' go to control-center->whatever). This would run the first time (or when there is a big update) and should help users not only in getting their system configured (themes, panel layout, etc) but also in getting to know how the system is configured.
I just saw something similar on my N810, first time it asks for the basic configuration, and offers tips on how to change those settings later. I think it makes sense.
-
Bryen -
Casual J. Programmer -
Kevin Dupuy -
Rodrigo Moya -
Vincent Untz