Dear Mandrake, I'm forwarding an e-mail written to me by a 60 years Linux convert to you. Eventhough i don't fully agree with what he wants, i sympathize with his views.
Let us ask one question. How many new Mandrake users will be coming from 1. Windows 2. Other Linux distributiosn 3. Computer newbies OK. the answer is obvious. Let us simplify menus more. When i came to Mandrake 8.0,first thing that impressed me was Menu. I'm a RedHat convert, suffering from long native menus. of course things have a changed a lot now. In Mandrake 9.1 beta1 i still see a lot of system administration options in the default menu. It's soooo long. see here... http://192.197.108.174/albums/album25/mdk2.sized.png 1. Home has three starting points. kicker/Desktop/Menu 2. Help has kicker/Menu <starts KDE Help instead of the excellent Mandrake Documentation> 2. Terminal has two starting points Kicker/Menu 3. KMenu has these administrative tools Configure Panel/Info center/Menu Editor/Printing Manager + kicker has Help/MCC If someone takes a close look more redundant things can be removed. Please remove the clutter. By default give only one application for the user in the menu. Use the Mandrake first time wizard to configure the menu with the users favourite e-mail/browser/terminal/IM/Dial-up tool/edtitor/music player/graphic tool and other apps. Give the user the option to re-run First time wizard anytime from MCC and please mention this things in your quick start guide. A power user will know how to add/remove menus. Newbies will really appreciate the simplicity. Please install Mandrake Documentation by default. Let the power user un choose it if he wants. If necessary put the quick start guide only in a small rpm. This should guide the user how to get more detailed documentation. Split the documentation rpm it's a whopping 22 MB in 9.0 Integrate the KDE Control Center/MCC and make it one. Hide the redundant ones, but ofcourse please cripple any features. Ranger's utility may be a good starting point. In the whole e-mail i'm not talking about Gnome since i don't use it. But the points are mostly valid as for as menu structure is concerned. Let's remember, Giving more options to new users is not choice. It's confusion. Let's give choice, but not throw so many applications at him to frighten him. He may never learn to remove thim. Cheers., Prabu Note: forwarded message attached. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
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