Re: Baobab
quote who=Callum McKenzie Is trying to find where all your disk space has gone a common and useful activity? I say yes[1]. - Callum [1] Although there is a strong argument this should be part of nautilus rather than a stand-alone app. Which means the answer is still the same. - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2007: Sydney, Australia http://lca2007.linux.org.au/ What do you get when you cross a web server and a hen? Apoache. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Baobab
ons, 26 07 2006 kl. 17:47 -0700, skrev Jeff Waugh: quote who=Emmanuele Bassi The GNOME Utilities package is a small package that GNOME has kept since the 1.x era (and before); it provides some application other than baobab, like the screenshoter, the file search dialog, the dictionary and the system log viewer, that are not sufficiently big to warrant their own package but at the same time are considered part of the basic offering of GNOME itself. I think Davyd's question was more about whether Baobab (or its function) is suitable to be considered part of the basic offering of GNOME itself. I am not convinced it should be there myself. It's a nice little tool, however as the user only has access to a subset of the data stored on the system representing data in the manner Baobab does might not be the best option we have. For me the only reason to use such a tool would be if I'm running out of space and I need to find the best place to start the deleting. Now it strikes me that the correct way to handle that use case is: 1) Available diskspace goes below a set limit*, libnotify me that I'm running out of diskspace. 2) The system offers to clean out the trash for me 3) If I'm still not above the limit then we could present the user with some suggestions for files in his homedir that he has never accessed to be moved to tagged for removal. This sounds dangerous but at least we know nobody ever touched them so it might be safer than having him find big files with baobab without a helpful suggestion and just deleting away. I've seen people remove everything except the .exe file from applications on Windows to save space, since that was all they used - much to their surprise it stopped working. Baobab on as a regular user makes little sense, as a sysadmin on a system with a lot of users it would be very handy to spot which users are storing a lot of irrelevant data in their homedir etc. I don't really think it has a place on a regular desktop, it would be most welcome in a administration application set for GNOME along side Sabayon, pessulus and most of gnome-system-tools though. * calculating this limit can be tricky, no one setting will ever hit the mark for all cases. The reserved block feature in ext3 is a perfect example of how not to do this. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Baobab
quote who=David Nielsen I don't really think it has a place on a regular desktop, it would be most welcome in a administration application set for GNOME along side Sabayon, pessulus and most of gnome-system-tools though. (I think it would make more sense in a future 'Powertools' suite rather than the misnamed 'admin' suite - it really should be 'management'.) - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2007: Sydney, Australia http://lca2007.linux.org.au/ We are not complete muppets. - Murray Cumming ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Baobab
Hi Jeff, On Wed, 2006-07-26 at 23:59 -0700, Jeff Waugh wrote: quote who=David Nielsen I don't really think it has a place on a regular desktop, it would be most welcome in a administration application set for GNOME along side Sabayon, pessulus and most of gnome-system-tools though. (I think it would make more sense in a future 'Powertools' suite rather than the misnamed 'admin' suite - it really should be 'management'.) I was not aware that du was part of a power suite shell management package. Perhaps I've got the wrong distribution. Let's see... You have searched for usr/bin/du in stable, architecture i386. Found 1 matching files/directories, displaying files/directories 1 to 1. FILE PACKAGE usr/bin/du base/coreutils Nope, it's in coreutils. Baobab is a GUI version of du: it really does nothing more and nothing less; it's a small utility showing the size of your files starting from a folder recursively. But let's see where find (the equivalent of gnome-search-tool) is: You have searched for usr/bin/find in stable, architecture i386. Found 1 matching files/directories, displaying files/directories 1 to 1. FILE PACKAGE usr/bin/find base/findutils Another package, but still in the base Debian (and Debian derivative) installation. Finally, let's see where the dictionary client lives: You have searched for usr/bin/dict in stable, architecture i386. Found 1 matching files/directories, displaying files/directories 1 to 1. FILEPACKAGE usr/bin/dicttext/dict Uh-oh: it seems that the dictionary client is not part of a basic installation. Let's remove *that*, if we want to remove something from gnome-utils, and then let's see what happens. The point is: gnome-utils is a collection of utilities. Over the years has been reduced in size by removing less used/unmaintained programs and by giving other utilities their own space. We have reached the point of having four small-ish applications inside it. If we don't want gnome-utils to grow anymore, we might as well split the package into four smaller packages (gnome-screenshot, gnome-dictionary, gnome-search-tool, gnome-system-log) and then see what can be added to the desktop on a per package basis. Personally, I think it'd be a dumb decision, but I'll glady do the split myself - and then resign from being the maintainer of gnome-dictionary. Ciao, Emmanuele. -- Emmanuele Bassi, E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.net B: http://log.emmanuelebassi.net ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Baobab
quote who=Emmanuele Bassi (I think it would make more sense in a future 'Powertools' suite rather than the misnamed 'admin' suite - it really should be 'management'.) I was not aware that du was part of a power suite shell management package. Perhaps I've got the wrong distribution. Uh, dude, seriously - comparing what we include in gnome-utils (part of our Desktop suite, and generally installed by default on GNOME systems) with the CLI tools shipped in *nix systems doesn't make a lot of sense! We used to jam all kinds of things into GNOME in the 1.x period, whether it made a lot of sense or not - let's not go down that path again. Baobab is a great utility, the kind of thing a lot of users will love when they find it, but it's not something we need to ship as part of the OOTB user experience. - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2007: Sydney, Australia http://lca2007.linux.org.au/ The two [separate] UIs are both incredibly simple and don't even look like computer programs; they barely need menus. [When combined, they] suddenly look like software. - Havoc Pennington on 'software' design ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Baobab
On Wed, 2006-07-26 at 17:47 -0700, Jeff Waugh wrote: quote who=Emmanuele Bassi The GNOME Utilities package is a small package that GNOME has kept since the 1.x era (and before); it provides some application other than baobab, like the screenshoter, the file search dialog, the dictionary and the system log viewer, that are not sufficiently big to warrant their own package but at the same time are considered part of the basic offering of GNOME itself. I think Davyd's question was more about whether Baobab (or its function) is suitable to be considered part of the basic offering of GNOME itself. I am not convinced it should be there myself. I personally love when a discussion about the release takes place; I love it a little less when it happens three months after I started the discussion, after I received a go ahead from the release team, and especially when the integration has already been done and releases are already out. This is really timely. Not. Ciao, Emmanuele. -- Emmanuele Bassi, E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.net B: http://log.emmanuelebassi.net ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Baobab
On Thu, 2006-07-27 at 01:11 -0700, Jeff Waugh wrote: quote who=Emmanuele Bassi (I think it would make more sense in a future 'Powertools' suite rather than the misnamed 'admin' suite - it really should be 'management'.) I was not aware that du was part of a power suite shell management package. Perhaps I've got the wrong distribution. Uh, dude, seriously - comparing what we include in gnome-utils (part of our Desktop suite, and generally installed by default on GNOME systems) with the CLI tools shipped in *nix systems doesn't make a lot of sense! Neither saying that having a tool that shows how much of your disk your files are taking up belongs to a power tools suite makes a lot of sense, given that on Linux you have had the same tool installed as part of your basic set of commands since 1995 or something like that. We are talking about functionality. Baobab provides a simple functionality that it's lacking from the GNOME suite of programs; it's nice saying that the functionality should be provided by Nautilus, but Nautilus does not provide it in any form - unless you right click on every folder and select Properties. We used to jam all kinds of things into GNOME in the 1.x period, whether it made a lot of sense or not - let's not go down that path again. It makes more sense than having a system log viewer - but hey, we have had that for every release of GNOME 2.x. And, for the love of god: [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/tmp/gnome-utils$ du -sh baobab 764Kbaobab [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/tmp/gnome-utils$ du -sh gnome-dictionary 1.9Mgnome-dictionary [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/tmp/gnome-utils$ du -sh gfloppy/ 1016K gfloppy/ Baobab it's smaller than GFloppy (sources and pixmaps included), and we still ship that useless piece of crap even if it should be Nautilus to provide the same functionality! Ciao, Emmanuele. -- Emmanuele Bassi, E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.net B: http://log.emmanuelebassi.net ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Baobab
Hi Davyd, On Thu, 2006-07-27 at 10:35 +0800, Davyd Madeley wrote: On Wed, 2006-07-26 at 17:47 -0700, Jeff Waugh wrote: quote who=Emmanuele Bassi The GNOME Utilities package is a small package that GNOME has kept since the 1.x era (and before); it provides some application other than baobab, like the screenshoter, the file search dialog, the dictionary and the system log viewer, that are not sufficiently big to warrant their own package but at the same time are considered part of the basic offering of GNOME itself. I think Davyd's question was more about whether Baobab (or its function) is suitable to be considered part of the basic offering of GNOME itself. I am not convinced it should be there myself. As Jeff said. This smacks of KDE/GNOME 1.2 feature creep. Yeap, from four utilities (a dictionary client, a file search tool, a system log viewer and a screenshooter) we passed to five. Surely this reminds me of gnome-utils in the 1.x days. Let's see what was in gnome-utils in the Glorious Days of 1.2: cromagnon edit-menus find-file gcalc gcharmap gdialog gdict gdiskfree gfloppy gnome-find gnome-utils.spec.in gsearchtool gstripchart gtt idl logview mini-utils gcolorsel gfontsel gless gnome-run gpenguin grun gshutdown gsu guname gw idetool notepad splash Well, no shit. We are really letting everything in these days. Please don't get me wrong, it seems like a useful application (little rough around the edges, but that can be fixed), but does it belong in core GNOME? Does it belong to the core GNOME to view your logs? Or to look up words in online dictionaries? Or to create an image of your desktop? I'd say that viewing the size of your files on your disk at a glance has every right to be on the core, until Nautilus provides the exact same functionality. Ciao, Emmanuele. -- Emmanuele Bassi, E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.net B: http://log.emmanuelebassi.net ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Baobab
Hi Jeff; On Thu, 2006-07-27 at 01:22 -0700, Jeff Waugh wrote: quote who=Emmanuele Bassi I personally love when a discussion about the release takes place; I love it a little less when it happens three months after I started the discussion, after I received a go ahead from the release team, and especially when the integration has already been done and releases are already out. This is really timely. Not. (Additionally, we should absolutely be willing to go back on changes we make during the development cycle, otherwise we won't ever be bold enough to try out crazy things with the knowledge that we can revert if needs be. So I can understand your frustration, but it's not very different to other situations we should be prepared to handle.) Don't get me wrong: I was ready to roll out every change. Or even not to commit the merge. That's why I asked first, three months ago. But having received a go ahead and having release five versions without even a *slight hint* that my decision was questionable is frustrating at best. If even a single mail saying we'll keep it in check and decide later would have been useful: I would have kept a finger on the trigger. Now it looks like I did something wrong because I merged a utility without the consent of the community - and that makes me look I'm stupid. Ciao, Emmanuele. -- Emmanuele Bassi, E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.net B: http://log.emmanuelebassi.net ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Baobab
quote who=Emmanuele Bassi If even a single mail saying we'll keep it in check and decide later would have been useful: I would have kept a finger on the trigger. Now it looks like I did something wrong because I merged a utility without the consent of the community - and that makes me look I'm stupid. I don't remember where you sent your mail, but I don't see it in the same terms. You did what you thought correct as the maintainer, and that's what you absolutely should do. It's just taken a while for feedback to return about your choice. I don't think it makes you look stupid for not having the consent of the community - it's just that the community hadn't caught up with what you were doing. :-) - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2007: Sydney, Australia http://lca2007.linux.org.au/ Itanium: A synthetic market-group tested plasticised square. - Jamie Wilkinson ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Patches for scrollkeeper...is scrollkeeper maintained?
On Thu, 2006-07-27 at 09:49 +1000, Andrew Cowie wrote: On Wed, 2006-07-26 at 21:54 +0100, Don Scorgie wrote: Hopefully at some point soon, we can remove scrollkeeper entirely and replace it. Oh? Sounds interesting. What With? My hatred of scrollkeeper boiled over and I wrote a proposal to kill it: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-doc-devel-list/2006-July/msg00014.html (sorry, the line-wrapping apparently doesn't work in the archives) Don ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Baobab
On Thu, 2006-07-27 at 01:39 -0700, Jeff Waugh wrote: quote who=Emmanuele Bassi Neither saying that having a tool that shows how much of your disk your files are taking up belongs to a power tools suite makes a lot of sense, given that on Linux you have had the same tool installed as part of your basic set of commands since 1995 or something like that. Considering Baobab's approach, ... Which is showing a list after having selected a starting point, so I don't see what's wrong with that approach and why it's so strikingly power-tool-esque... and the problem it solves for users, I think it is entirely reasonable to suggest that it is a 'power tool'. That's where I don't agree. For me the system log viewer is a power tool. My wife doesn't know what logs are and why should they be important (and my wife is a geek who wants me to explain her how the dictionary protocol works); but my wife really would like to know the layout of her Documents folder by size, to know if she has been copying stuff, or if it's time to remove the old cruft. We generally think about delivering a complete, integrated user experience like f-spot rather than a set of random one-shot tools. Then we should remove gnome-utils entirely, that's my point. gnome-utils is composed of one-shot tools by definition (utilities). As I said, splitting gnome-utils into its applications and then submitting for approval each and every one of them is a perfectly fine solution for me. Hell, I'll do the split up in the week end if the release team gives the go ahead and the community wishes so. I have often used the phrase 'greatest commmon factor' to describe the kinds of things we ought to ship in the Desktop suite. It means shipping things that are going to be appropriate for most of the different kinds of users who use GNOME. How does Baobab fit in with that? By providing a functionality not available on the desktop up until now, and providing it integrated in the UI and in the interaction with other tools (gnome-search-tool and nautils). What is the user goal that we are trying to solve by including Baobab, Showing the folder structure from a starting point, in a way that conveys not only the hierarchical layout but also the size of every single node in the structure. and how can we solve those user goals more directly? By having nautilus showing the same layout and having it ordering by the same criteria the same data. If someone wants to code a patch for nautilus 2.18 and have it accepted by nautilus' maintainers, I'll more than gladly remove baobab from gnome-utils. What are our users trying to achieve? They are trying to see how their files are big, and where their disk space went, especially when a notification popup tells them that they have 88% of their disk full. These are the questions we need to answer, and we need good answers to those (even if coming up with them is harder) As you can see, those are easy questions, and they were posed and answered before baobab was included, because I don't want to add stuff willy nilly. Otherwise, a year ago or so, when Davyd proposed the inclusion of gruler inside gnome-utils I would have said yeah, great idea, let's do it. I'm not saying this to diss Baobab or your maintenance of gnome-utils, I just want to make sure that the things we've achieved over the last six years live on in the psyche of new maintainers. As you can see, those things haven't bounced on my thick skull. Those things are why I love GNOME and contribute to it. Ciao, Emmanuele. -- Emmanuele Bassi, E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.net B: http://log.emmanuelebassi.net ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Baobab
On Thu, 2006-07-27 at 09:33 +0100, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: If even a single mail saying we'll keep it in check and decide later would have been useful: I would have kept a finger on the trigger. Now it looks like I did something wrong because I merged a utility without the consent of the community - and that makes me look I'm stupid. Please don't get anyone wrong here. I don't think this reflects on either you or anyone else here. This is simply part of the development process, and I'm just saying that perhaps we should take a step back and reevaluate. --d -- Davyd Madeley http://www.davyd.id.au/ 08B0 341A 0B9B 08BB 2118 C060 2EDD BB4F 5191 6CDA ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Baobab
quote who=Emmanuele Bassi and the problem it solves for users, I think it is entirely reasonable to suggest that it is a 'power tool'. That's where I don't agree. For me the system log viewer is a power tool. Please don't make points by making irrelevant analogies with unrelated tools. I've already noted my opinion of the system log viewer. We generally think about delivering a complete, integrated user experience like f-spot rather than a set of random one-shot tools. Then we should remove gnome-utils entirely, that's my point. gnome-utils is composed of one-shot tools by definition (utilities). Many of which are entirely appropriate in approach and experience. As I said, splitting gnome-utils into its applications and then submitting for approval each and every one of them is a perfectly fine solution for me. For various reasons, I think that makes a lot of sense, but it's unrelated to the topic of Baobab. I have often used the phrase 'greatest commmon factor' to describe the kinds of things we ought to ship in the Desktop suite. It means shipping things that are going to be appropriate for most of the different kinds of users who use GNOME. How does Baobab fit in with that? By providing a functionality not available on the desktop up until now, and providing it integrated in the UI and in the interaction with other tools (gnome-search-tool and nautils). There is a lot of 'functionality' we could jam into the Desktop suite because it's not there already, so using a generic argument here is not fruitful. What is the user goal that we are trying to solve by including Baobab, Showing the folder structure from a starting point, in a way that conveys not only the hierarchical layout but also the size of every single node in the structure. You are explaining *how* Baobab does what it does, not what the user goal is that we should be addressing. If someone wants to code a patch for nautilus 2.18 and have it accepted by nautilus' maintainers, I'll more than gladly remove baobab from gnome-utils. Backwards! I'm not saying this to diss Baobab or your maintenance of gnome-utils, I just want to make sure that the things we've achieved over the last six years live on in the psyche of new maintainers. As you can see, those things haven't bounced on my thick skull. Those things are why I love GNOME and contribute to it. I'm not saying you're stupid, I'm just suggesting that your answers are not correct. - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2007: Sydney, Australia http://lca2007.linux.org.au/ Patches are like Free Software love letters. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Baobab
Hi Jeff, On Thu, 2006-07-27 at 02:22 -0700, Jeff Waugh wrote: What is the user goal that we are trying to solve by including Baobab, Showing the folder structure from a starting point, in a way that conveys not only the hierarchical layout but also the size of every single node in the structure. You are explaining *how* Baobab does what it does, not what the user goal is that we should be addressing. The user goal is stated in the part you snipped out: +++ What are our users trying to achieve? They are trying to see how their files are big, and where their disk space went, especially when a notification popup tells them that they have 88% of their disk full. +++ Since this commonly is a one shot operation (I don't spend my entire session time doing that, for instance) a one shot application fits the operation profile. Everything descends from this point forward. Ciao, Emmanuele. -- Emmanuele Bassi, E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.net B: http://log.emmanuelebassi.net ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Baobab
quote who=Emmanuele Bassi The user goal is stated in the part you snipped out: +++ What are our users trying to achieve? They are trying to see how their files are big, and where their disk space went, especially when a notification popup tells them that they have 88% of their disk full. +++ Surely their goal is closer to make more room on my disk for stuff I care about rather than see how their files are big and where their disk space went. :-) Since this commonly is a one shot operation (I don't spend my entire session time doing that, for instance) a one shot application fits the operation profile. Everything descends from this point forward. Different point of view: I know an Ubuntu community member is working on an app to help a user clean up big stuff (and known things that take up a lot of room) on their disk. So instead of telling them to go run the weird app that makes them browse a graph of their disk and find stuff themselves, it suggests things based on its knowledge of GNOME disk usage and analysis of other large directories. Which user experience do you think is most helpful and/or delightful? Before saying we don't have this functionality therefore we must put it in, we really need to analyse what the actual problems are for our users, and think critically about how to solve them in helpful and/or delightful ways. I'm not suggesting that's easy, of course. :-) - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2007: Sydney, Australia http://lca2007.linux.org.au/ Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am: Stuck in the middle with you. - Steeler's Wheel, Stuck in the Middle With You ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Baobab
On Thu, 27 Jul 2006, Callum McKenzie wrote: Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 17:33:30 +1200 From: Callum McKenzie [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Davyd Madeley [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: desktop-devel-list@gnome.org Subject: Re: Baobab On Thu, 2006-07-27 at 10:35 +0800, Davyd Madeley wrote: As Jeff said. This smacks of KDE/GNOME 1.2 feature creep. Please don't get me wrong, it seems like a useful application (little rough around the edges, but that can be fixed), but does it belong in core GNOME? Is trying to find where all your disk space has gone a common and useful activity? I say yes[1]. What happens next is where the real potential lies. A few good bits of integration with other tools could help to answer users questions and enable them to solve the underlying disk usage problems. Do I have some very large files taking up space? Do I have many small files taking up space? Do I have some programs I can uninstall to save space? Do I need to empty the trash or clear out other transient files? (The second and fourth items tend to overlap.) (My mailbox spam folder is how big? Gigabytes you say, oh dear.) These are not just administrators tasks because any user is forced to do a certain level of maintaince to keep things running smoothly. It may also be possible to adjust Baobab to educate users and give them a better understanding of what is actually happening and how their file system but that would just be a bonus. -- Alan H. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Baobab
Hi Jeff; On Thu, 2006-07-27 at 02:44 -0700, Jeff Waugh wrote: quote who=Emmanuele Bassi The user goal is stated in the part you snipped out: +++ What are our users trying to achieve? They are trying to see how their files are big, and where their disk space went, especially when a notification popup tells them that they have 88% of their disk full. +++ Surely their goal is closer to make more room on my disk for stuff I care about rather than see how their files are big and where their disk space went. :-) I concede that one of the reasons behind looking where the fuck my space went is I was ripping The Lord of the Rings extended edition DVDs and I ran out of space. But another reason is that tiny little notification icon that says dude, you have nearly no space left on the device, which by the way would be cool if had a link saying run the disk usage tool to see if the porn folder is out of control. Since this commonly is a one shot operation (I don't spend my entire session time doing that, for instance) a one shot application fits the operation profile. Everything descends from this point forward. Different point of view: I know an Ubuntu community member is working on an app to help a user clean up big stuff (and known things that take up a lot of room) on their disk. So instead of telling them to go run the weird app that makes them browse a graph of their disk and find stuff themselves, it suggests things based on its knowledge of GNOME disk usage and analysis of other large directories. Which user experience do you think is most helpful and/or delightful? Let's see. Is more helpful a distribution-dependent tool that, for what we know, may well be ready for GNOME 4.0, in a distant future where we all have flying cars, the stable Debian release is 5.0 and GNOME runs on an artificial intelligence that periodically scans my folders and tells me I be better off copying my Music folder on my portable holographic mass storage; or is more helpful something that works right now, albeit with some rough edges that can be smoothed? Okay, that's a rhetorical question for me and for you, but I'd like someone else to comment on this, because frankly this is turning up surreal and I think both of us exposed our own reasons; my task is to maintain gnome-utils at my best and explain my choices, not convince everyone that I have the Ultimate Truth about design principles and software management. I leave this task to others more fitted. Before saying we don't have this functionality therefore we must put it in, we really need to analyse what the actual problems are for our users, and think critically about how to solve them in helpful and/or delightful ways. I'm not suggesting that's easy, of course. :-) I'm thinking of the *actual* problems, and I see a solution that fits well what our users need now; a solution that can be improved from an already working code base. +++ Anyway, we are really going off track - and I don't want another mono-like thread. If the release team decides that baobab does not fit with gnome-utils and the core desktop packages, I'll remove it starting from the next release. Ciao, Emmanuele. -- Emmanuele Bassi, E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.net B: http://log.emmanuelebassi.net ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Baobab
quote who=Emmanuele Bassi Surely their goal is closer to make more room on my disk for stuff I care about rather than see how their files are big and where their disk space went. :-) I concede that one of the reasons behind looking where the fuck my space went is I was ripping The Lord of the Rings extended edition DVDs and I ran out of space. But another reason is that tiny little notification icon that says dude, you have nearly no space left on the device, which by the way would be cool if had a link saying run the disk usage tool to see if the porn folder is out of control. Right - but that tool is not Baobab. Which user experience do you think is most helpful and/or delightful? Let's see. Is more helpful a distribution-dependent tool I see no reason why it would be distribution dependent. that, for what we know, may well be ready for GNOME 4.0, in a distant future where we all have flying cars, the stable Debian release is 5.0 and GNOME runs on an artificial intelligence that periodically scans my folders and tells me I be better off copying my Music folder on my portable holographic mass storage; or is more helpful something that works right now, albeit with some rough edges that can be smoothed? Why do you have to make your point in this way? If you're asking when it is likely to be ready, I believe it is targeted at the October release (but I do not know for sure), and it would be entirely appropriate for us to reach out to that Ubuntu community member and suggest they participate upstream. Before saying we don't have this functionality therefore we must put it in, we really need to analyse what the actual problems are for our users, and think critically about how to solve them in helpful and/or delightful ways. I'm not suggesting that's easy, of course. :-) I'm thinking of the *actual* problems, and I see a solution that fits well what our users need now; a solution that can be improved from an already working code base. I think my descriptions demonstrate that it is not approaching the problem in a user-centric way. Why jam in an existing tool when it is not really what we want to deliver to our users? I think this is a really important discussion, and I'm disappointed that you have approached it like this. - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2007: Sydney, Australia http://lca2007.linux.org.au/ From my observation, when it comes to porting Linux to a particular device, a point doesn't appear to be necessary. - mpt ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Baobab
quote who=Emmanuele Bassi Anyway, we are really going off track - and I don't want another mono-like thread. If the release team decides that baobab does not fit with gnome-utils and the core desktop packages, I'll remove it starting from the next release. (Additionally, it's not up to the release team to make a decision about this or tell a maintainer what to do - but I would suggest taking feedback like this from other community members seriously.) - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2007: Sydney, Australia http://lca2007.linux.org.au/ Debian is not as minor as many business end people think. - Alan Cox ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Baobab
You agree with each other and yet you are arguing with each other. This is depressing. This discussion would be better in the form of Wouldn't it be even better if ... and then How can we make that happen?. The other stuff is just demotivating. Murray Cumming [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.murrayc.com www.openismus.com ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Baobab
Hi Jeff;
On Thu, 2006-07-27 at 04:23 -0700, Jeff Waugh wrote:
quote who=Emmanuele Bassi
Anyway, we are really going off track - and I don't want another mono-like
thread. If the release team decides that baobab does not fit with
gnome-utils and the core desktop packages, I'll remove it starting from
the next release.
(Additionally, it's not up to the release team to make a decision about this
or tell a maintainer what to do - but I would suggest taking feedback like
this from other community members seriously.)
I do take them seriously. I am at my most serious, actually.
I also take into account what other users said: that Baobab is a nice
addition to the gnome-utils package and that it has made their
experience with the GNOME desktop better by providing a tool that
avoided them using the terminal.
I have weighted your concerns, as well as the others, and I questioned
my choice of adding baobab before starting with the merge; the idea of
adding it to gnome-utils started at the end of the last release cycle -
it's not something that I planned and executed in two days.
I totally understand your point: Baobab is a little too
technology-oriented and less user-centred than the GNOME standard; maybe
it's even a little bit too young, or it requires a bit more knowledge of
the computer than I'd like; but it can improve - and on these grounds I
added it to gnome-utils, and the addition itself already brought in
improvements in terms of coherency, documentation and interoperability.
Maybe, when nautilus will register the folders the user's opened last
we'll be able to use Baobab to track a list of habitual space hoggers,
and show them first; or maybe we'll find a new way to interact with
nautilus and HAL, and have it track the disk usage, making it a more
kick-ass tool.
I am willing to bet on the possibilities that Baobab offers, as much as
you are willing to bet on the possibilities of the
${UBUNTU_COMMUNITY_MEMBER_PROJECT} that you mentioned (and of which I
didn't know anything, otherwise I would have tracked that too, as I did
with other tools similar to Baobab before choosing it for integration).
That is why I'm also willing to put the final decision on the release
team: I don't want to be a block, by stubbornness or by ignorance, so I
step aside and let who is in charge of the release to decide.
Ciao,
Emmanuele.
--
Emmanuele Bassi, E: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.net
B: http://log.emmanuelebassi.net
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Re: Baobab
På Thu, Jul 27, 2006 at 12:01:46PM +0100, Emmanuele Bassi skrev: Hi Jeff; On Thu, 2006-07-27 at 02:44 -0700, Jeff Waugh wrote: quote who=Emmanuele Bassi They are trying to see how their files are big, and where their disk space went, especially when a notification popup tells them that they have 88% of their disk full. Surely their goal is closer to make more room on my disk for stuff I care about rather than see how their files are big and where their disk space went. :-) I concede that one of the reasons behind looking where the fuck my space went is I was ripping The Lord of the Rings extended edition DVDs and I ran out of space. But another reason is that tiny little notification icon that says dude, you have nearly no space left on the device, which by the way would be cool if had a link saying run the disk usage tool to see if the porn folder is out of control. Note that the new computer panel menu used by Novell in the Suse Linux Desktop shows diskspace usage in the lower right corner (see [1] for a screenshot). Right now it links to gnome-system-monitor (third tab). Would be nice to have that view integrated with baobab. mvrgr, Wouter [1] http://uwstopia.nl/blog/2006/07/alternative-main-menu -- :wq mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] web http://uwstopia.nl i know secrets :: i've never been told -- heather nova signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Tomboy in Desktop
Jeff Waugh wrote: I haven't really heard much of a critical response to these ideas, just more ber, Desktop, Desktop, Desktop, get it all in Desktop stuff. Why does it need to be in Desktop? Why do we have to jam everything in Desktop? Can we ship it in Powertools (a suite that has been proposed a couple of times)...? We don't have to jam everything in Desktop, but shipping it in a power tools release with devilspie and nautilus-open-terminal is wrong, because Tomboy isn't intended to only be useful for power users, it's intended to be useful for *everyone*. It would be useful to formally bless it *somehow* though. Going back to your original post: * If Alex wants to adopt the GNOME release cycle and strategy for Tomboy, that's *fantastic*... but we can approach that differently. * Let's give our users the ability to discover and cherish awesome third party software for GNOME. The big missing piece here is translation. Alex can't personally translate Tomboy into all 52 languages, but the translators don't have time to translate every single GNOME app in the universe either. So if we want to consider Tomboy to be in, GNOME should say as long as Alex sticks with the GNOME release cycle and obeys string freezes, the translators should translate it along with the rest of the release. It doesn't matter much what we call this state. (As long as it's not Power Tools :-). Maybe bring back Fifth Toe? -- Dan ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Tomboy in Desktop
On Jul 26, 2006, at 9:43 AM, Alex Graveley wrote: ... Here's a status update on recent Tomboy happenings... I've applied a patch originally from Novell to use Tango icons and removed the possibly legally entangled Tintin icon. ... I don't mean to be a nuisance, but since Tomboy is licensed under the LGPL, Tango icons may be legally entangled too. http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/tango-artists/2006-July/ 000621.html Cheers -- Matthew Paul Thomas http://mpt.net.nz/ ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Winners of today's build breakages
On Wed, 2006-07-26 at 08:30 -0600, Elijah Newren wrote: On 7/26/06, Joseph E. Sacco, Ph.D. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (0) currently running 2.15.90 For what it's worth, I am currently running 2.15.90, built from the source in GARNOME CVS-HEAD (1) dbus API deprecation issues There are some other packages provided by GARNOME that still require updating to handle dbus API deprecation: * avahi * dhcdbd * hal * liboobs Note that the gnome-system-tools gnome-2-14 branch will be used for Gnome 2.16, and thus liboobs isn't relevant until at least Gnome 2.18. I complained for months that the perl-net-dbus hard dependency either needed to be brought up on d-d-l and a consensus reached that it's okay as a dependency, or that the dependency be made optional. Neither happened, so the new version of gnome-system-tools will not be used. This decision saddens me... I should mention that there's an internal copy of Net::DBus in CVS since July 7th, it's just that I've lacked both time and internet connection to make tarballs, I'll work on it, although it seems a bit late... Regards * NetworkManager * rhythmbox ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Winners of today's build breakages
Carlos Garnacho wrote: This decision saddens me... I should mention that there's an internal copy of Net::DBus in CVS since July 7th, it's just that I've lacked both time and internet connection to make tarballs, I'll work on it, although it seems a bit late... And it would probably be better for this internal copy not to install in Perl global directories; unfortunately I have not enough Perl-fu to know about this. Frederic ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Tomboy in Desktop
Jeff Waugh wrote: quote who=Dan Winship The big missing piece here is translation. Alex can't personally translate Tomboy into all 52 languages, but the translators don't have time to translate every single GNOME app in the universe either. So if we want to consider Tomboy to be in, GNOME should say as long as Alex sticks with the GNOME release cycle and obeys string freezes, the translators should translate it along with the rest of the release. It doesn't matter much what we call this state. (As long as it's not Power Tools :-). Maybe bring back Fifth Toe? Fifth Toe was a random grab bag, without any real purpose - what kind of focused suite would you suggest if not Power Tools? A random grab bag is exactly what I'm suggesting. Apps that we like, that you might like too, but that we don't want to put into Desktop. Users/Distros can look through it and find the ones they like. Focused suites only work for apps that are targeted at a focused subset of users (power users, sysadmins, artists, swedes, whatever). If we put Tomboy in a Power User or Sysadmin suite, non-power-users/sysadmins would never discover it. But if we put it in an Organizational Tools suite or a Desktop Extras suite or an Apps That Make Heavy Use of the Color Yellow suite, then we're not actually helping anyone, because the divisions between the suites would be completely irrelevant to our users, so every user would have to look through the contents of every suite to find which apps they care about, so it's essentially still just a random grab bag. -- Dan ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Tomboy in Desktop
On 7/27/06, Jeff Waugh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: quote who=Jeff Waugh Here's my point of view, completely independent from the fact that Tomboy is built with Gtk#/Mono. Here it is in point form, because I seem to be doing pretty well with it: I haven't really heard much of a critical response to these ideas, just more ber, Desktop, Desktop, Desktop, get it all in Desktop stuff. Why does it need to be in Desktop? Why do we have to jam everything in Desktop? Can we ship it in Powertools (a suite that has been proposed a couple of times)...? Taking notes is hardly a power user thing. Most people like having a place that they can just scribble some notes down. My opinion is that if it is in anything it should be the desktop release. As for its conflict with sticky notes, the options are a) Have both b) Have both but deprecate sticky notes. c) Replace My views a) Clearly is silly. While they are not identical, they both serve the same basic purpose. Its like getting into the 4 clock situation again, they weren't all identical, but they did the same basic thing - told the time. b) Having both but deprecating sticky notes to remove it at a later date is kinda the cop out solution to satisfy the people screaming about application churn or saying that they'll miss their favourite note taking application. And I think its a non-argument really. Removing sticky notes at some arbitary later date will once again have people saying that they'll miss their favourite note taking application, and complaining about application churn, and so it will never be removed. Leaving c, in my opinion, the only viable option. The people who upgrade to the new gnome won't suddenly find their sticky notes had been uninstalled in the process, so it will still function as normal, and there is nothing stopping people taking the old sticky notes and maintaining it outside of gnome, it it actually matters that much to them. The people who install gnome for the first time won't know that they missed the yellow sticky note app in the first place. Having the first time importer doodah and maybe renaming it to just Notes in the menu so people don't get confused because they don't know what tomboy is. Maybe on first run the Start Here note could pop up on screen and explain what it is. I dunno, but thats a discussion for the tomboy developers. There, that is my opinion. iain ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Tomboy in Desktop
On 7/28/06, Iain * [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Taking notes is hardly a power user thing. Most people like having a place that they can just scribble some notes down. My opinion is that if it is in anything it should be the desktop release. Oh, and tomboy gives us enough new ability with being able to link notes together (and generally automatically at that) and drag email links etc to justify the switch. iain ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Tomboy in Desktop
Tomboy already does this, though the description it gives is pretty minimal today. What do you think it should say? -Alex Iain * wrote: Maybe on first run the Start Here note could pop up on screen and explain what it is. I dunno, but thats a discussion for the tomboy developers. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Tomboy in Desktop
Oh, ok, my apologies. Its been a long time since my first run :) iain On 7/28/06, Alex Graveley [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tomboy already does this, though the description it gives is pretty minimal today. What do you think it should say? -Alex Iain * wrote: Maybe on first run the Start Here note could pop up on screen and explain what it is. I dunno, but thats a discussion for the tomboy developers. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Tomboy in Desktop
On Fri, 2006-07-28 at 00:19 +0100, Iain * wrote: As for its conflict with sticky notes, the options are a) Have both b) Have both but deprecate sticky notes. c) Replace How does all this square with the notes component in Evolution? Seems that instead of both above the right term would be all three [I've had the switcher buttons turned off for a long time, so only just noticed that such a thing was even in Evolution... but it's part of the desktop, no?] AfC Sydney ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
