> I think Dennis has a good point. We are looking at > two issues that > should be *really* simple to do something about. > > - graphic background for grub on install cd/dvd > - numlock on by default > > What do others think? > > alan.
Two concerns: * while the initial appearance and settings should probably look good and generally be unsurprising to (I'll be nice) naive or inexperienced users, it needs to continue to work in a variety of environments: both a graphical console and a serial terminal * doing tricky stuff with the keyboard only applies if one can detect a graphical console, and a keyboard amenable to manipulation. Given that, I think a further qualifier would be that NumLock should _not_ be defaulted on any keyboard that appears to be "compact", i.e. without a separate numeric keypad; where the numeric keypad is overlaid on regular keys (common on laptops; also the type 5c keyboard was like that, I think; and there are probably USB keyboards like that too, for those that prefer to minimize desk space usage). If it were possible to read/manipulate NumLock on a particular keyboard, perhaps it ought to also display textually the state of NumLock, at least initially. That might reduce the surprise factor. Subject to the above, I think BIOS settings for initial NumLock state ought to be honored. I'm somewhat neutral on the whole numeric keypad issue; I suspect it depends on one's background. As such, probably the way to go is with the most common behavior, subject to the constraint that it not be followed where there is some clear indication that's not what someone wants (BIOS setting to default NumLock off, for instance) or where it would be obnoxious or increase the likelihood of unexpected behavior (compact keyboards). Overall I have no problem with the whole installation experience being as easy and unsurprising for novice users as possible subject to the conditions that it continue to work from any sort of terminal, and that while reasonable results should be obtained by taking defaults pretty much all the way through, no expert/advanced functionality should be removed or crippled. Also, eye candy is fine, provided it doesn't cause problems for those with poor vision (including color-blindness, problems with too much or too little brightness or contrast, etc), and provided that it's not so busy as to be distracting (and keeps marketing/advertising out or at least non-intrusive), nor uses colors that are garish or irritating. As to whether it would be better to have a timeless look that's expected to remain fairly stable for many future versions, or a more cutting edge look that's updated regularly, I'm somewhat inclined to favor the former as taking less resources to produce in the long run and being less distracting, although I can see that the latter at least makes version-to-version change immediately noticable (and perhaps increases the perception of progress and value). This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list [email protected]
