You can pin apps to the dash by dragging them there, or right-click on its icon in the dash.
On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 1:43 AM, Xavier Cho <[email protected]> wrote: > I've been using Gnome 3 for some months, and overall I think it's definitely > a step in the right direction. However, as a long time Gnome 1&2 user, I > find it lacking in some aspects in terms of usability and features. > Most of all, I think Gnome 3 requires too much user interaction when > navigating in the program menu. In the days of global application menu, when > you need to launch an application all you need to do was 1) click on the > panel menu icon, 2) and navigate by hovering your mouse over the categories, > 3) then click on the application. All it needed was 2 clicks and minimal > mouse movement. > However in Gnome 3, you need first 1) move your mouse to the upper left > corner of the screen, 2) and click on the programs menu, 3) wait couple of > seconds (especially when you click it for the first time), 4) move your > mouse to the opposite end of the screen to click through the application > categories, 5) and again move your mouse pointer to where the application > is, 6) and finally click on the icon to launch it. > In summary, now it requires 3 + number of categories clicks and much more > mouse traversal to lauch an application, which I feel a setback in terms of > user experience compared to Gnome 1&2. > I believe the situation would be much better if we could make the categories > traversable by mouse hover instead of clicks, and move the category menu to > the left side to make it close to the hot spot on the upper left corner of > the screen. And it'd reduce the unnecessary delay if it displays selected > few favorite, or most often used applications instead of showing all of them > when you click on the program menu. I guess even providing an alternative > hot spot, say lower left corner of the screen to access the program menu > directly would make it on par with Gnome 2 in terms of mouse clicks needed > for an application launch. > I suppose the direction Gnome 3 is moving toward is providing a simple, > unified desktop environment for variety of devices, including tablets and > even smart phones. However, I believe simplicity in software doesn't always > lies in 'eliminating' features, but usually in intuitive design and 'hiding' > advanced features. > Suppose, there's some basic tasks which most of the users performs often - > like launching an application from program menu - consists roughly 30% of > all desktop features. And there's features which more advanced users need or > which are not used frequently, like customizing desktop fonts, would > consists another 30% of the features. And finally there's remaining 40% of > the features which would rarely be accessed or by expert users or > developers. > Then you need to make those basic 30% of features readily accessible - no > keyboard short cuts, no redundant mouse clicks) in a most intuitive and > simple way. And you can still expose the advanced 30% of features accessible > from GUI, but hidden from casual users, preferably by providing 'advanced' > button like many applications do. > For the remaining expert features, I guess executing terminal commands or > changing gconf values to access them shouldn't be much problem. > So, I'd like to suggest we should collect and priotize all the planned or > implemented features in Gnome 3 according to a criteria similar to the above > mentioned, then re-evaluate their accessibility and usability according to > their nature. So if there's some basic tasks like accessing an application > menu requiring too much mouse interaction, or some non expert features like > chaging desktop fonts missing from the control panel, we could easily detect > such problem and fix it in a consistent way if there's such a design > principle understood and agreed upon among the most developers and users. > I guess Gnome desktop has come a long way, and now it's not uncommon to see > non tech-savy people use it as their primary work environment. So, it's all > about user experience and usability which really matters and would put Gnome > ahead of other competitors. > > Xavier Cho > > _______________________________________________ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list > -- Jasper _______________________________________________ desktop-devel-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
