[yast-devel] The Desktop Selection Screen
Hello all, I'd like to discuss this issue https://progress.opensuse.org/issues/14936 with title "revamp the desktop selection screen". It's all about this [1] dialog. We were discussing this feature on the SCRUM planning meeting and it turned out that we actually need to better understand the reasons for the change. The problem is that the desktop selection cannot be easily replaced by the pattern selection because there are several technical and UX issues: 1) The pattern selector [2] contains the "Details" button which starts the full package selection [3]. That means the user can also select individual packages, change some package management flags, etc... That means we would need to disable (remove) that button and this would require a change in the API between the Ruby code and the libyui frontends (ncurses, Qt). 2) Another problem is that after manual pattern selection we would need to remember the selected patterns. The software selection can be reset later in the installation proposal in some specific situations. In the past there was a combobox which allowed resetting the proposal explicitly by user, that's gone. But IIRC the reset still could be invoked by YaST itself... And in that case we need to restore the original user selection. (These two issues are not critical, just be aware that the change might not be that simple as it might seem on the first look...) 3) Selecting the individual patterns might a bit strange from UX POV I think. If you choose KDE or GNOME you can still change the selected patterns or packages later in the SW proposal. Would it make more sense to just offer the "Text mode" and/or "Minimal X" options and leave the user to modify/extend that later? We would probably need to mention this fact directly at the desktop dialog as currently it's not clear that the package selection can be fine tuned (or even change completely) later... So the question is what is actually the use case behind? Ludwig, what you want to achieve or what's the problem with the current approach? The issue mentions only obsolete or unmaintained XFCE or E17n, could we simply remove them and offer something else? Any other opinions or ideas how to improve this dialog? [1] http://paste.opensuse.org/45768232 [2] http://paste.opensuse.org/67757978 [3] http://paste.opensuse.org/59910543 -- Ladislav Slezák YaST Developer SUSE LINUX, s.r.o. Corso IIa Křižíkova 148/34 18600 Praha 8 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: yast-devel+owner@opensuse.org
On 01/24/2017 09:08 AM, Ladislav Slezak wrote:
Hello all,
I'd like to discuss this issue https://progress.opensuse.org/issues/14936 with title "revamp the desktop selection screen". It's all about this [1] dialog.
We were discussing this feature on the SCRUM planning meeting and it turned out that we actually need to better understand the reasons for the change.
The problem is that the desktop selection cannot be easily replaced by the pattern selection because there are several technical and UX issues:
1) The pattern selector [2] contains the "Details" button which starts the full package selection [3]. That means the user can also select individual packages, change some package management flags, etc...
That means we would need to disable (remove) that button and this would require a change in the API between the Ruby code and the libyui frontends (ncurses, Qt).
2) Another problem is that after manual pattern selection we would need to remember the selected patterns. The software selection can be reset later in the installation proposal in some specific situations.
In the past there was a combobox which allowed resetting the proposal explicitly by user, that's gone. But IIRC the reset still could be invoked by YaST itself... And in that case we need to restore the original user selection.
(These two issues are not critical, just be aware that the change might not be that simple as it might seem on the first look...)
3) Selecting the individual patterns might a bit strange from UX POV I think. If you choose KDE or GNOME you can still change the selected patterns or packages later in the SW proposal.
Would it make more sense to just offer the "Text mode" and/or "Minimal X" options and leave the user to modify/extend that later? We would probably need to mention this fact directly at the desktop dialog as currently it's not clear that the package selection can be fine tuned (or even change completely) later...
So the question is what is actually the use case behind? Ludwig, what you want to achieve or what's the problem with the current approach? The issue mentions only obsolete or unmaintained XFCE or E17n, could we simply remove them and offer something else?
Any other opinions or ideas how to improve this dialog?
As far as I know (and I could perfectly be wrong), we have a better way to pre-select patterns (and not only patterns) that would not be affected by (1) and (2). System roles. Isn't it? Right now, system roles are not used in openSUSE... but they look to me like a good replacement for the desktop selection screen. Any obvious drawback I'm overlooking? Cheers.
[1] http://paste.opensuse.org/45768232 [2] http://paste.opensuse.org/67757978 [3] http://paste.opensuse.org/59910543
-- Ancor González Sosa YaST Team at SUSE Linux GmbH -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: yast-devel+owner@opensuse.org
Dne 24.1.2017 v 09:37 Ancor Gonzalez Sosa napsal(a):
As far as I know (and I could perfectly be wrong), we have a better way to pre-select patterns (and not only patterns) that would not be affected by (1) and (2). System roles. Isn't it?
Oh, that's actually an interesting idea...
Right now, system roles are not used in openSUSE... but they look to me like a good replacement for the desktop selection screen.
Any obvious drawback I'm overlooking?
Um, the Desktop selection dialog defines only the pattern selection, so there are basically two options: 1) Define the openSUSE roles to only configure the patterns (to be backward compatible with the current behavior, users are used to it) 2) Additionally configure some other options (partitioning,...), just like in SLES, e.g. do not propose separate /home for a minimal system. This is a different behavior but I'd tend to prefer this approach as it is far more flexible and probably better fits the user requirements. The only thing I'd improve is the visual appearance. The roles dialog looks... so plain. The current desktop selection dialog has some nice icons which improve the dialog a lot. But that should not be hard to improve I guess... (Note: adding Ludwig to CC, I'm not sure if he is subscribed...) -- Ladislav Slezák YaST Developer SUSE LINUX, s.r.o. Corso IIa Křižíkova 148/34 18600 Praha 8 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: yast-devel+owner@opensuse.org
Ladislav Slezak wrote:
Dne 24.1.2017 v 09:37 Ancor Gonzalez Sosa napsal(a):
As far as I know (and I could perfectly be wrong), we have a better way to pre-select patterns (and not only patterns) that would not be affected by (1) and (2). System roles. Isn't it?
Oh, that's actually an interesting idea...
Right now, system roles are not used in openSUSE... but they look to me like a good replacement for the desktop selection screen.
Any obvious drawback I'm overlooking?
Um, the Desktop selection dialog defines only the pattern selection, so there are basically two options:
1) Define the openSUSE roles to only configure the patterns (to be backward compatible with the current behavior, users are used to it)
2) Additionally configure some other options (partitioning,...), just like in SLES, e.g. do not propose separate /home for a minimal system.
This is a different behavior but I'd tend to prefer this approach as it is far more flexible and probably better fits the user requirements.
The only thing I'd improve is the visual appearance. The roles dialog looks... so plain. The current desktop selection dialog has some nice icons which improve the dialog a lot. But that should not be hard to improve I guess...
I don't mind how it's implemented. https://openqa.suse.de/tests/735808#step/system_role/1 vs https://openqa.opensuse.org/tests/340542#step/installer_desktopselection/1 So we'd have [x] KDE Desktop [ ] GNOME Desktop [ ] Server (textmode, no separate home) [ ] Custom cu Ludwig -- (o_ Ludwig Nussel //\ V_/_ http://www.suse.com/ SUSE Linux GmbH, GF: Felix Imendörffer, Jane Smithard, Graham Norton, HRB 21284 (AG Nürnberg) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: yast-devel+owner@opensuse.org
Ladislav Slezak wrote:
The problem is that the desktop selection cannot be easily replaced by the pattern selection because there are several technical and UX issues:
1) The pattern selector [2] contains the "Details" button which starts the full package selection [3]. That means the user can also select individual packages, change some package management flags, etc...
That means we would need to disable (remove) that button and this would require a change in the API between the Ruby code and the libyui frontends (ncurses, Qt).
When a user clicks on the software selection in the proposal screen he would get to the very same dialogs today already, right? Ie not much of a difference except that the user gets the chance earlier. So I wouldn't mind if the button stays.
2) Another problem is that after manual pattern selection we would need to remember the selected patterns. The software selection can be reset later in the installation proposal in some specific situations.
In the past there was a combobox which allowed resetting the proposal explicitly by user, that's gone. But IIRC the reset still could be invoked by YaST itself... And in that case we need to restore the original user selection.
Could you detect the reset and require the user to redo the software selection if the user chose the custom option? YaST doesn't have to remember everything.
3) Selecting the individual patterns might a bit strange from UX POV I think. If you choose KDE or GNOME you can still change the selected patterns or packages later in the SW proposal.
Would it make more sense to just offer the "Text mode" and/or "Minimal X" options and leave the user to modify/extend that later? We would probably need to mention this fact directly at the desktop dialog as currently it's not clear that the package selection can be fine tuned (or even change completely) later...
The custom option I am asking for is basically a replacement for the minimal X option. Showing the pattern selection as next dialog is meant to avoid giving the impression that we want to suppress other choices.
So the question is what is actually the use case behind? Ludwig, what you want to achieve or what's the problem with the current approach? The issue mentions only obsolete or unmaintained XFCE or E17n, could we simply remove them and offer something else?
The problem with the current approach is that we don't know what lead to the current state. Why do we list XFCE but not Mate? Why E but not Lxqt? We cannot fill that screen with all options and we cannot fit all of them on the DVD. So we have to focus and the focus is on KDE, GNOME and the Server selection. Nevertheless we need an easy way for enthusiasts to install the alternative choices. The secondary choices should be displayed equally, we make no promises or recommend one over the other. cu Ludwig -- (o_ Ludwig Nussel //\ V_/_ http://www.suse.com/ SUSE Linux GmbH, GF: Felix Imendörffer, Jane Smithard, Graham Norton, HRB 21284 (AG Nürnberg) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: yast-devel+owner@opensuse.org
participants (3)
-
Ancor Gonzalez Sosa -
Ladislav Slezak -
Ludwig Nussel