Re: [Tails-testers] Opinion about Tails 4.0beta1

Delete this message

Reply to this message
Author: sajolida
Date:  
To: Tails list for early testers
New-Topics: [Tails-testers] Category-based applications menu / Activities overview [Was: Opinion about Tails 4.0beta1]
Subject: Re: [Tails-testers] Opinion about Tails 4.0beta1
intrigeri:
> sajolida:
> This used to be the case, but for many years now, GNOME does not
> display an Applications menu with submenus by default anymore.
> Neither Debian, Fedora nor Ubuntu diverge from GNOME's defaults; we
> do. I don't know which distribution enables the Applications menu by
> default. So at this point, I've no idea who we're sharing this
> classification with, nor who cares enough to maintain and update it;
> it could be the RHEL folks or it could be almost nobody.
> If we really want to keep that menu and improve the classification,
> it's a possibility that GNOME folk would happily take our patches.


You're right, I forgot about this because I always add it back :)

> AFAICT from my limited experience, Android does not use such
> categories either: it does something closer to default GNOME.
> I don't know about other operating systems that Tails users
> may be familiar with.


Windows 7 still has a "Windows" menu from where applications are
started. It only has 3 submenus that are predefined by default:

- "Accessories"
- "System Tools" (inside Accessories)
- "Games"

These menus are messy (Windows style!) and have scroll bars.

macOS High Sierra has the application doc on the bottom of the screen.
Applications can also be started from Finder which has only 1 submenu to
hide away the "Utilities".

> One issue GNOME folks are aware of wrt. the Overview is that it's hard
> to discover for first-time users; I guess it's one of the primary
> reasons why we still have an Applications menu. I seem to remember
> that there's an extension floating around that displays it on login by
> default, developed by folks who wanted to improves things here.
> IIRC some GNOME-based distro that's strong on design/UX work enables
> this by default. If there's interest, I could look this up
> more precisely.


I think that the biggest problem with the Activities Overview is even
more about learning how to get there than about knowing that it exist:
it only has a pretty weak signifier on the desktop. Displaying it by
default wouldn't solve that.

--
sajolida
Tails — https://tails.boum.org/
UX · Fundraising · Technical Writing