[Mageia-discuss] Mageia-discuss Digest, Vol 2, Issue 137

andre999 andr55 at laposte.net
Mon Nov 1 05:20:40 CET 2010


Marc Paré a écrit :
>
> Le 2010-10-31 10:51, Dale Huckeby a écrit :
>
>>
>> While we agree that "Young Family" doesn't work, it seems to me some 
>> of the
>> other categories are similarly broad. A useful rule of thumb would be to
>> focus not on types of persons or groups but on activities. Since "young
>> family" is not an activity, whereas "web development" is, that gives 
>> us an
>> objective reason for preferring the latter over the former as a useful
>> category. Likewise for "academia". Not all academics have the same 
>> needs,
>> for instance adminstrators versus research professors versus adjuncts 
>> who
>> teach and don't do research, yet all would fall under the term 
>> "academic".
>> In addition, a given college professor is not going to use his or her
>> computer only AS a professor, and his or her other activities, playing
>> poker online, playing games offline, buying and selling stocks and 
>> bonds,
>> etc. would vary widely from person to person.
>>
>> That's why I would focus more narrowly on what a person wants to DO with
>> his computer, in terms of *specific* tasks or activities. Early in the
>> process I would ask him what sorts of things he wants to use his 
>> computer
>> for and then list all the things he CAN do with it, each of which can be
>> selected or ignored. It MIGHT be useful to note, without it necessarily
>> being a selectable category, some of the things (and the apps that would
>> go with them) a typical high school teacher or rabid sports fan or
>> writer or stock market player might want to do or, alternatively, we
>> could indicate, along with the description of the uses of a particular
>> app or closely linked set of apps, what kinds of people might find
>> such app(s) useful, and why. All of this is a way of saying, which I
>> think we're in general agreement on, that we should be careful not
>> to cast too broad a net with our categories, that each should embody
>> a *particular* activity or *closely* linked set of activities.
Nor too narrow
>>
>> Dale Huckeby
>
> Here we agree again. There would be nothing to stop that section, for 
> example, "Academia" to open up to subsets of "Academia-Reasearch"; 
> "Academia-Administrator (office)"; "Academia-Teaching" etc.
Good point
>
> And yes, if they play poker online, they would then have checked the 
> "Gaming" category.
Which could have "cards" among other sub-categories ...

> The choosing of these categories are what the person wants to DO with 
> her/his computer. What you are suggesting is to ask her/him what they 
> would want to do and they would answer by categories. So why add such 
> a layer when we could already dispense with this layer and go straight 
> to the categories?
Right - the more streamlined the better.  As long the user has the choices.

> There are only a certain amount of programmes available and therefore 
> the same for categories. We can offer the categories. If some of the 
> categories are broad, then, when picked, we could have for example, a 
> drop down extended menu from that categories with a sub-set of more 
> descriptive categories.
I like the idea of a line that expands, like in Rpmdrake categories, or 
the (Gnome) Nautilus file browser.

> And, remember, that software packages will bridge the categories where 
> they fit in more than one.
>
> We are saying the same thing but with different approaches.
>
> Marc

It seems we're approaching a consensus.

I'm also beginning to see a convergence here ... with the XDG menu 
system used by Mandriva.
We probably want to keep the installation choices somewhat simpler.

So I see the installation, after the language selection (of one or more 
languages), continuing with the choice of the desktop environment.
I would have KDE / Gnome / Other (which expands to show the others 
available) / or none (for console only)
With an "information" button to give the implications, including the 
fallback light desktops for KDE and Gnome.

After that, a dialog for the activity categories, which would have 
default application selections corresponding to the desktop environment 
chosen.
We could preselect certain categories to make it easier for users who 
don't want to bother choosing.

We list the categories, each of which is expandable to show any 
sub-categories, and further to show the individual applications, for 
more detailed selection/deselection.
Particularly useful for more advanced users.
The advantage of this is we can have something suitable for all types of 
users, without requiring configuration or non-intuitive choices.
Those who want quick easy choices, and those - like myself - who want to 
fine-tune which packages are installed in one pass.
Required packages such as libraries should probably remain hidden, 
although they would be visible as now in Rpmdrake after the installation.

- André






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