Hello, Since my last attempt to change (or at least to talk about changing) the freenet UI didn't really succeed, maybe it's better to focus on some points.
*The default CSS theme: I think that the clean-dropdown theme is good, but there is one big problem imho: the status bar looks like the menu bar. I find that very confusing. *The global feeling: I never thought of that before, but the interface looks like an administration console. Not really like a software user-oriented interface. I think that the minimalist theme remove that feeling a bit, so maybe it should be the default theme, as a first step. *Plugins: For now, we have a limited amount of plugins. What if we have 10 plugins that people would use everyday (mail, forum, filesharing, chat, search, upnp, ...). I think we should really make plugins a part of freenet, and not just have a single page for them. For instance, the UPnP plugin: why does it appears on the plugin page? I mean, it should be part of the configuration : do you want to enable UPnP : [Y/N] And an other plugin like library: why does it appears on the plugin page? If it's not loaded, just don't display the search box, and explain why (as we do now). And don't make people search for it in the plugin page: it should also be part of the configuration: enable search over freenet? [Y/N] So, I think that for misc plugins, we should integrate them directly into freenet, and make them an option. Well, of course, I may have miss something, and they have to be plugins. Fine, but we don't have to say that to the user. Or we just warn him that by enabling one of the option, it will load a plugin. BTW, I don't understand why the heck there is a search freenet page, when there is a search box on the browse page. The only purpose I can see is to configure the search. Well, it should be in configuration then. And we can add the selection of index on the browse page too. Or we can use the default index, and when the search is done, asking if the user want to use an other index if he didn't find what he searched. For other plugins who really need UI, we should have something looking like that : http://www.google.fr/intl/fr/options/ A sort of application "store", when user can choose which app he wants to use. We can add a little '+' on the icon when the application is not yet loaded, and a '-' when it is. To choose whether we want to load over freenet or over the web, we have two solution : either we make a global option displayed in configuration (default freenet), and we always load the plugin accordingly, except if it fails to load and then we ask if we want to retry or try another solution, or we display the two options each time we click on the '+' button. *Interaction: It would be great if we have a home page, with news from the project (what changed, what is about to, ...), updated bookmarks, friends messages, rss, etc... As I picture it, it would be modular, like google iirc, and a lot of other site (but google is the only one i can remember right now). You can add a module, remove it, move it, etc... Of course, that would be in a perfect world. If we can have something static, it would be great too. And I think it would allow the user to view freenet as something more close to them. That's all for now, Remember that all of that are just remarks, I'm not saying freenet sucks, or this or that sucks. Just pointing out some things, and asking for comments ;) Regards, Dieppe PS : I didn't know how to structure that, so I just put everything in one message, but maybe it's best if we focus on one point per answer?
