[openbeos] Re: PnP, drivers, packages, etc.

This discussion may indeed be better suited to the Glass Elevator mailing
list, since it appears to treat functionality that goes beyond the feature
set of BeOS R5 (i.e., the feature set to be replicated in OpenBeOS R1).
Besides, the GE list has been eerily silent for nine days now... :-)

I do have a thought, however. Marco, you mentioned your concern that if each
device were represented on the desktop by an icon, then the typically clean,
spartan BeOS desktop would become cluttered with icons. Besides being
unappealing visually, this could actually make it difficult for the user to
find the icon for one device in particular (among the crowds of icons),
especially since desktop icon sorting seems to be unavailable as a feature
in BeOS.

Perhaps the solution to this crowding problem would be to provide an option
in which all device icons would be grouped together within a parent
directory (or virtual directory) called "Devices", and only the single icon
for the Devices parent directory would reside on the desktop.
Double-clicking the Devices icon would open a window showing all
currently-available devices. These could be viewed and sorted in list mode
within this window, making it easy for the user to find one device in
particular.

Tracker offers a similar option already with respect to disks. The Tracker
settings configuration file located at:
/boot/home/config/settings/Tracker/TrackerSettings
may be edited so that the first three lines (typically) read as follows:
ShowDisksIcon on
MountVolumesOntoDesktop off
MountSharedVolumesOntoDesktop off

With these settings in place, all mounted disk icons appear together only
within a window associated with a single desktop Disks icon, rather than
appearing separately and individually on the desktop itself.

If your new Devices icon made this option available, then one could turn it
on or off at will. (I would opt *not* to clutter my desktop with icons
representing all available devices, personally... :-) . )

Czeslaw Czapla

"Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will."
                                                 - Antonio Gramsci


> From: Marco Zanon <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Organization: -
> Reply-To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 16:07:21 +0200
> To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [openbeos] Re: PnP, drivers, packages, etc.
> 
>> Why should Tracker add an icon for a new device? Sure, it could
>> mount a hard disk that you plug in (if you want to), but why
>> the hell should it put anything else on the desktop? What would
>> be the purpose of it, and what would it be necessary for?
> 
> the user would have every device:
> a) "iconized" on the desktop (maybe I'm wrong, but doesn't Mac OsX
> does it too?)
> b) "itemized" in a menu
> ready to be used
> 
>> And why only new devices and not all of them?
> 
> all devices would be assigned an icon on login, in fact :)
> 
>> Seems like you have to explain a little more :-)
> 
> well, it seems that some people are interested in this issue, so
> maybe I will prepare some .pdf graphical slide to explain the
> whole idea in three moves... :)
> 
> regards,
> 
> Marco Zanon [http://www.marcozanon.com]
>

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