[haiku-development] Re: RFC: Packages and the Deskbar menu
- From: John Scipione <jscipione@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 21 May 2013 17:53:56 -0400
On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 4:08 PM, Ingo Weinhold <ingo_weinhold@xxxxxx> wrote:
> On 05/21/2013 09:44 AM, Humdinger wrote:
>> How about a checkbox "Add shortcut to Deskbar" in the "installer/pm-
>> manager/app-shop" application we'll have? In the window you see before
>> actually installing an app, so you can quickly decide on an app-by-app
>> basis.
>
> That was my initial idea as well. But thinking about it, I wouldn't use that
> feature at all. I simply want all installed applications to be easily
> reachable via the menu and I don't want to bother with maintaining anything
> in there at all. Well, maybe aside from "Favorites" category for
> applications I use often, but I'd use LaunchBox for that purpose anyway. I
> would think that the majority of users would be happy with a completely
> automated mechanism. at least, if there are better categories than there are
> now.
>
> For users who really can't live with the predefined categories or for
> purists who only want to see the applications they actually use the option
> to disable the auto-generated part would allow them to do whatever they
> like.
99% of user's won't ever want to customize the Deskbar so I wouldn't
spend too much time on it.
>> The sorting in those defined categories is one thing that has been
>> requested a lot in the past. Not everyone would like that, so it should
>> be an option in the Deskbar preferences.
>
> There seems to be a misunderstanding. We do already have four categories.
> The question merely is whether we want to refine them. And yes, we want to.
> :-) Since we have a lot less available software I don't think it makes a lot
> of sense to introduce multi-level categories (e.g. Internet/Chat), but ten
> or so top-level categories should work just fine.
>
> Regarding the ambiguity argument John brought up, I don't think that's an
> argument for not having more categories at all. The first time you want to
> start a certain application you might have to check two categories. The next
> time you'll know where to find it and you'll be faster then having to find
> it in a long list.
I might be alone here not wanting app categories, and that's okay. If
we build in the notion of categories to the package manager now, maybe
in the future we can move Deskbar to a Gnome3-esque interface where
you start with a paginated list of all applications and then you can
then drill down either by searching or by category (e.g.
Internet/Chat) to get a better app list until you pick the one you
want.
That being said, I'm against app categories on principle as they are
so arbitrary "Accessories", "Utilities", etc. and there's always the
odd app that defies categorization. Each app should stand on it's own,
not be relegated to a category. Where does Terminal go for instance?
What about Magnify, where does it get categorized?
Stop thinking of apps as belonging to one group or another because
they don't, each app is unique and fulfills the purposes of the
author's intent. Even the categories we have now are arbitrary, what's
a Demo, what's a Deskbar Applet? There's no definition it's all just
arbitrary. This would also neatly solve the debate of what to do with
non-package managed apps since they'd go in the same flat list as
everything else.
I call for just one category, "Applications", it's the only one that
makes sense.
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