Re: [Dng] three important UI features
Later on, we may still want to have a respin installer and/or liveCD with Mate default and anyway Mate is simple to apt-get install. With XFCE 4.12, just released any interest I had in Mate is now diminished considerably. I've nothing against Mate personally, but objectively speaking, XFCE provides an equivalent or better featureset with a lot less clutter. The XFCE codebase seems better maintained than a rework of Gnome 2, IMHO. My experience with Mate has been less than satisfactory lately. Differing distributions like Debian sid and OpenSUSE seem to have issues with mate-session causing UI crashes.I'd think it will take some serious work before a Debian Mate respin, or that Mate itself can be taken as seriously as XFCE at present. Many VUAs love Xfce4 and its team is really a good example of talented open source developers with good concerns about usability, compatibility and resource consumption. The reason we like it? Gradual improvement over radical change. we may want to backport a newer package ourselves with a more actual 4.12 (volunteers welcome). What do you need specifically? I'd be willing to offer some time as long as it is a discrete request, with a beginning and end. I've already compiled 4.12 once. t.j. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
On 02/28/2015 04:40 AM, Jaromil wrote: On Fri, 27 Feb 2015, Jonathan Wilkes wrote: Ok, that sounds like a plan. But which is the default DE for Devuan-- XFCE or Mate? It will be Xfce4, since Mate is somehow too big. Later on, we may still want to have a respin installer and/or liveCD with Mate default and anyway Mate is simple to apt-get install. However the default DE will be Xfce4 and we are also contributing to its code in order to keep it away from systemd lockin (thanks Dima!) https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11574 Many VUAs love Xfce4 and its team is really a good example of talented open source developers with good concerns about usability, compatibility and resource consumption. we may want to backport a newer package ourselves with a more actual 4.12 (volunteers welcome). Ok. From what Steve has written it looks like there are a lot more possibilities than I imagined to get the minimal functionality I mentioned. Once Devuan gets some ISOs for a basic system up, I'll spend some time working within the default DE, and continue from there. -Jonathan ciao ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 07:32:05PM -0430, Richard wrote: [cut] > > > > And leaving the code as-is might be the faster way to get to Devuan 1.0. > > > > -- hendrik > > ___ > > Dng mailing list > > Dng@lists.dyne.org > > https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng > > Which seems a worthwhile goal for Devuan today. > All these other interesting ideas will be great fun once we have workable, > usable basic distro to install and use, without systemd. Totally agree. We'd better have strong foundations before even start thinking about how the furniture of the penthouse on the 18th floor should look like My2Cents KatolaZ -- [ Enzo Nicosia aka KatolaZ --- GLUG Catania -- Freaknet Medialab ] [ me [at] katolaz.homeunix.net -- http://katolaz.homeunix.net -- ] [ GNU/Linux User:#325780/ICQ UIN: #258332181/GPG key ID 0B5F062F ] [ Fingerprint: 8E59 D6AA 445E FDB4 A153 3D5A 5F20 B3AE 0B5F 062F ] ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
On Sat, 28 Feb 2015 16:47:03 -0500 Hendrik Boom wrote: > On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 06:40:41PM -0300, Renaud OLGIATI wrote: > > On Sat, 28 Feb 2015 21:04:06 +0100 > > Wolfgang Pirker wrote: > > > > > Some other XFCE users might prefer the classical > > > XFCE application menu. > > > > I do ;-3) > > And leaving the code as-is might be the faster way to get to Devuan > 1.0. And... Leaving the classical menu intact in no way interferes with somebody *also* using dmenu, available at a single hotkey. SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
On Feb 28, 2015 5:17 PM, "Hendrik Boom" wrote: > > On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 06:40:41PM -0300, Renaud OLGIATI wrote: > > On Sat, 28 Feb 2015 21:04:06 +0100 > > Wolfgang Pirker wrote: > > > > > Some other XFCE users might prefer the classical > > > XFCE application menu. > > > > I do ;-3) > > And leaving the code as-is might be the faster way to get to Devuan 1.0. > > -- hendrik > ___ > Dng mailing list > Dng@lists.dyne.org > https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng Which seems a worthwhile goal for Devuan today. All these other interesting ideas will be great fun once we have workable, usable basic distro to install and use, without systemd. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 06:40:41PM -0300, Renaud OLGIATI wrote: > On Sat, 28 Feb 2015 21:04:06 +0100 > Wolfgang Pirker wrote: > > > Some other XFCE users might prefer the classical > > XFCE application menu. > > I do ;-3) And leaving the code as-is might be the faster way to get to Devuan 1.0. -- hendrik ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
On Sat, 28 Feb 2015 21:04:06 +0100 Wolfgang Pirker wrote: > Some other XFCE users might prefer the classical > XFCE application menu. I do ;-3) Cheers, Ron. -- Women should be obscene and not absurd. -- Groucho Marx -- http://www.olgiati-in-paraguay.org -- ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
> > > I don't know. Given the entire NetworkManager's dependency on dbus, > > > > Dbus is just the mechanism other programs use to interact with NM. > > If you were to carve out the dbus API from NM, it would still manage > > your network as before, but you'd need to add a different way to > > control it. > > For me it would be easier to build something simple from scratch than > rip out and replace other peoples' code from something unfamiliar to me. i think the implied message was that dbus is merely an IPC mechanism and removing would simply result in replacing it with another and thus a (mostly) moot point. --Gravis On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 2:55 PM, Steve Litt wrote: > On Sat, 28 Feb 2015 13:34:37 -0500 > Jude Nelson wrote: > > > > I don't know. Given the entire NetworkManager's dependency on dbus, > > > > Dbus is just the mechanism other programs use to interact with NM. > > If you were to carve out the dbus API from NM, it would still manage > > your network as before, but you'd need to add a different way to > > control it. > > > > -Jude > > :-) > > For me it would be easier to build something simple from scratch than > rip out and replace other peoples' code from something unfamiliar to me. > > SteveT > > Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ > Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance > > ___ > Dng mailing list > Dng@lists.dyne.org > https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng > ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
I have a remark on dmenu. It might be a practical way to achieve #2 for all desktop environment in a uniform way. But in a desktop environment like XFCE and heavier ones there are alternatives which might integrate better in its desktop environment and look prettier. For example in XFCE you could replace the Application Menu with Whiskermenu and bind it to the left or right Super key in the Application Shortcuts Settings. Apart from feature #2 whiskermenu also shows the most used applications immediately which is quite useful too. That is my opinion. Some other XFCE users might prefer the classical XFCE application menu. -- wolfgang On 2015-02-28 18:02, Steve Litt wrote: On Fri, 27 Feb 2015 15:00:01 -0500 Jonathan Wilkes wrote: > On 02/22/2015 07:38 PM, Jaromil wrote: > > dear Jonathan, > > > > you have very good concerns on usability. After Devuan 1.0 we might > > be able to quick fix desktop behaviour, I bet many developers > > involved will go do respins and blends. > > > > however, for what concerns us here and at least until the Devuan 1.0 > > release (which is a base system) you might have more chances > > interacting with the XFCE and the Mate projects, which are the main > > desktop environments Devuan offers on liveboot/install and are used > > by many other distributions. This way your contribution would have > > also a broader reach. > > Ok, that sounds like a plan. > > But which is the default DE for Devuan-- XFCE or Mate? I don't think it matters. I see four kinds of DEs: 1) No panel (Openbox et al) 2) Panel (Xfce, Lxde, JWM, et al) 3) Inclusion of human ambiguities (Gnome, Unity) 4) Bloatware (KDE, Gnome, Unity) I'm pretty sure Network Manager would work fine with 2, 3 and 4. Wicd works fine with all 4. The thing I'm proposing would work fine with all four, and would depend only on the wpa_supplicant family and whatever GUI dependencies the GUI version decided to incorporate. > > Also, I'll respond below to Steve (I can't find his message so I just > pasted it from the list archive...) > > >On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 20:11:12 + (UTC) > >Jonathan Wilkes wrote: > > >Hi Jonathan, > > >I rearranged the order of your post... > / > >> > >> Anyhow, if any of those three are missing under the planned > >> system, I'd be happy to help try to rectify the situation. / > > >That's supremely cool. Discoverability is *everything*!!! > > Hi Steve, > I think discoverability is everything, too. But I'd like to > differentiate discoverability > from "re-discoverability", which is what you get everytime Gnome 3 > changes its design-mind, or when Yahoo Mail feels like their > interface isn't cool enough. Yes. Please modify my statement to incorporate your preceding sentence. > > I picked these three features because I don't think they are overly > complex, That's for sure. #1 is a fairly easy set of shellscripts, perhaps front-ended by whatever. #2 is dmenu plus a hotkey, and #3 is just a hotkey. > and > they should be able to provide a decent and stable experience for a > decade or > more into the future. wpa_supplicant doesn't change much, so I'd imagine only the networking GUI front end would be subject to change. > / > >> Hello,A few questions about the GUI for Devuan... > >> 1) In the default desktop environment for Devuan, will there be an > >> icon or other discoverable item the user can click to see a list > >> of available wifi network connections?/ > > >I can do a lot of the non-gui stuff on this, should we decide that > >NetworkManager and Wicd aren't sufficient. > > >Basically, "iwlist scanning" yields the list, complete with > >everything needed to show the security type and signal strength. > >wpa-supplicant and the *horribly documented* wpa_cli to make and > >break connections and handle passwords. > > >I'd envision this as a python-Tk program (connection time is huge > >compared to executation time, so performance isn't an issue). > >There's no reason for this system to use dbus. > > A few questions: > * I've read about network manager being designed so that multiple > front-ends can > be used. But is the opposite possible? Is there a way to take > network manager applet's > taskbar dropdown list GUI and use that front-end on something else? I don't know. Given the entire NetworkManager's dependency on dbus, > * if not, would pyqt be a possibility? Tk is of course super-easy to > incrementally develop, > but it's missing crucial elements like theming, native dialogs, and a > slew of other stuff that > becomes a brick-wall if you want anything more than a > minimally-working GUI. / Everything you say in the preceding paragraph is true. I'll just give you an API, and you can hook any front end technology to it. However... My way of thinking is this: The less dependency, the better. If *I* were programming the front end, I'd use the least dependency encumbered GUI lib I could, and that wouldn't be Qt. But of course, the beauty of my giving
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
On Sat, 28 Feb 2015 13:34:37 -0500 Jude Nelson wrote: > > I don't know. Given the entire NetworkManager's dependency on dbus, > > Dbus is just the mechanism other programs use to interact with NM. > If you were to carve out the dbus API from NM, it would still manage > your network as before, but you'd need to add a different way to > control it. > > -Jude :-) For me it would be easier to build something simple from scratch than rip out and replace other peoples' code from something unfamiliar to me. SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
> I don't know. Given the entire NetworkManager's dependency on dbus, Dbus is just the mechanism other programs use to interact with NM. If you were to carve out the dbus API from NM, it would still manage your network as before, but you'd need to add a different way to control it. -Jude On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 1:02 PM, Steve Litt wrote: > On Fri, 27 Feb 2015 15:00:01 -0500 > Jonathan Wilkes wrote: > > > On 02/22/2015 07:38 PM, Jaromil wrote: > > > dear Jonathan, > > > > > > you have very good concerns on usability. After Devuan 1.0 we might > > > be able to quick fix desktop behaviour, I bet many developers > > > involved will go do respins and blends. > > > > > > however, for what concerns us here and at least until the Devuan 1.0 > > > release (which is a base system) you might have more chances > > > interacting with the XFCE and the Mate projects, which are the main > > > desktop environments Devuan offers on liveboot/install and are used > > > by many other distributions. This way your contribution would have > > > also a broader reach. > > > > Ok, that sounds like a plan. > > > > But which is the default DE for Devuan-- XFCE or Mate? > > I don't think it matters. I see four kinds of DEs: > > 1) No panel (Openbox et al) > 2) Panel (Xfce, Lxde, JWM, et al) > 3) Inclusion of human ambiguities (Gnome, Unity) > 4) Bloatware (KDE, Gnome, Unity) > > I'm pretty sure Network Manager would work fine with 2, 3 and 4. Wicd > works fine with all 4. The thing I'm proposing would work fine with all > four, and would depend only on the wpa_supplicant family and whatever > GUI dependencies the GUI version decided to incorporate. > > > > > Also, I'll respond below to Steve (I can't find his message so I just > > pasted it from the list archive...) > > > > >On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 20:11:12 + (UTC) > > >Jonathan Wilkes wrote: > > > > >Hi Jonathan, > > > > >I rearranged the order of your post... > > / > > >> > > >> Anyhow, if any of those three are missing under the planned > > >> system, I'd be happy to help try to rectify the situation. / > > > > >That's supremely cool. Discoverability is *everything*!!! > > > > Hi Steve, > > I think discoverability is everything, too. But I'd like to > > differentiate discoverability > > from "re-discoverability", which is what you get everytime Gnome 3 > > changes its design-mind, or when Yahoo Mail feels like their > > interface isn't cool enough. > > Yes. Please modify my statement to incorporate your preceding sentence. > > > > > I picked these three features because I don't think they are overly > > complex, > > That's for sure. #1 is a fairly easy set of shellscripts, perhaps > front-ended by whatever. #2 is dmenu plus a hotkey, and #3 is just a > hotkey. > > > and > > they should be able to provide a decent and stable experience for a > > decade or > > more into the future. > > wpa_supplicant doesn't change much, so I'd imagine only the networking > GUI front end would be subject to change. > > > / > > >> Hello,A few questions about the GUI for Devuan... > > >> 1) In the default desktop environment for Devuan, will there be an > > >> icon or other discoverable item the user can click to see a list > > >> of available wifi network connections?/ > > > > >I can do a lot of the non-gui stuff on this, should we decide that > > >NetworkManager and Wicd aren't sufficient. > > > > >Basically, "iwlist scanning" yields the list, complete with > > >everything needed to show the security type and signal strength. > > >wpa-supplicant and the *horribly documented* wpa_cli to make and > > >break connections and handle passwords. > > > > >I'd envision this as a python-Tk program (connection time is huge > > >compared to executation time, so performance isn't an issue). > > >There's no reason for this system to use dbus. > > > > A few questions: > > * I've read about network manager being designed so that multiple > > front-ends can > > be used. But is the opposite possible? Is there a way to take > > network manager applet's > > taskbar dropdown list GUI and use that front-end on something else? > > I don't know. Given the entire NetworkManager's dependency on dbus, > > > > * if not, would pyqt be a possibility? Tk is of course super-easy to > > incrementally develop, > > but it's missing crucial elements like theming, native dialogs, and a > > slew of other stuff that > > becomes a brick-wall if you want anything more than a > > minimally-working GUI. / > > Everything you say in the preceding paragraph is true. I'll just give > you an API, and you can hook any front end technology to it. However... > > My way of thinking is this: The less dependency, the better. If *I* > were programming the front end, I'd use the least dependency encumbered > GUI lib I could, and that wouldn't be Qt. > > But of course, the beauty of my giving you an API is that you can write > the front end in pyqt, Joe could write it in Python/TK, Sam could > write it in Python/curses, and
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
On Fri, 27 Feb 2015 15:00:01 -0500 Jonathan Wilkes wrote: > On 02/22/2015 07:38 PM, Jaromil wrote: > > dear Jonathan, > > > > you have very good concerns on usability. After Devuan 1.0 we might > > be able to quick fix desktop behaviour, I bet many developers > > involved will go do respins and blends. > > > > however, for what concerns us here and at least until the Devuan 1.0 > > release (which is a base system) you might have more chances > > interacting with the XFCE and the Mate projects, which are the main > > desktop environments Devuan offers on liveboot/install and are used > > by many other distributions. This way your contribution would have > > also a broader reach. > > Ok, that sounds like a plan. > > But which is the default DE for Devuan-- XFCE or Mate? I don't think it matters. I see four kinds of DEs: 1) No panel (Openbox et al) 2) Panel (Xfce, Lxde, JWM, et al) 3) Inclusion of human ambiguities (Gnome, Unity) 4) Bloatware (KDE, Gnome, Unity) I'm pretty sure Network Manager would work fine with 2, 3 and 4. Wicd works fine with all 4. The thing I'm proposing would work fine with all four, and would depend only on the wpa_supplicant family and whatever GUI dependencies the GUI version decided to incorporate. > > Also, I'll respond below to Steve (I can't find his message so I just > pasted it from the list archive...) > > >On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 20:11:12 + (UTC) > >Jonathan Wilkes wrote: > > >Hi Jonathan, > > >I rearranged the order of your post... > / > >> > >> Anyhow, if any of those three are missing under the planned > >> system, I'd be happy to help try to rectify the situation. / > > >That's supremely cool. Discoverability is *everything*!!! > > Hi Steve, > I think discoverability is everything, too. But I'd like to > differentiate discoverability > from "re-discoverability", which is what you get everytime Gnome 3 > changes its design-mind, or when Yahoo Mail feels like their > interface isn't cool enough. Yes. Please modify my statement to incorporate your preceding sentence. > > I picked these three features because I don't think they are overly > complex, That's for sure. #1 is a fairly easy set of shellscripts, perhaps front-ended by whatever. #2 is dmenu plus a hotkey, and #3 is just a hotkey. > and > they should be able to provide a decent and stable experience for a > decade or > more into the future. wpa_supplicant doesn't change much, so I'd imagine only the networking GUI front end would be subject to change. > / > >> Hello,A few questions about the GUI for Devuan... > >> 1) In the default desktop environment for Devuan, will there be an > >> icon or other discoverable item the user can click to see a list > >> of available wifi network connections?/ > > >I can do a lot of the non-gui stuff on this, should we decide that > >NetworkManager and Wicd aren't sufficient. > > >Basically, "iwlist scanning" yields the list, complete with > >everything needed to show the security type and signal strength. > >wpa-supplicant and the *horribly documented* wpa_cli to make and > >break connections and handle passwords. > > >I'd envision this as a python-Tk program (connection time is huge > >compared to executation time, so performance isn't an issue). > >There's no reason for this system to use dbus. > > A few questions: > * I've read about network manager being designed so that multiple > front-ends can > be used. But is the opposite possible? Is there a way to take > network manager applet's > taskbar dropdown list GUI and use that front-end on something else? I don't know. Given the entire NetworkManager's dependency on dbus, > * if not, would pyqt be a possibility? Tk is of course super-easy to > incrementally develop, > but it's missing crucial elements like theming, native dialogs, and a > slew of other stuff that > becomes a brick-wall if you want anything more than a > minimally-working GUI. / Everything you say in the preceding paragraph is true. I'll just give you an API, and you can hook any front end technology to it. However... My way of thinking is this: The less dependency, the better. If *I* were programming the front end, I'd use the least dependency encumbered GUI lib I could, and that wouldn't be Qt. But of course, the beauty of my giving you an API is that you can write the front end in pyqt, Joe could write it in Python/TK, Sam could write it in Python/curses, and Dave could write it in C/ncurses. > >> 2) When the DE's main menu pops > >> up, will the user be able to _immediately_ start typing characters > >> and see a list of applications filtered to match what is being > >> typed?/ > > >Dmenu does exactly that: > > >http://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/ > > >Dmenu is a productivity fountain without peer, that can be > >installed on *any* Linux. I wouldn't be caught dead without an easy > >hotkey to Dmenu. I tweak my dmenu to scroll vertically down the > >screen instead of horizontally acros
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 02/28/2015 11:38 AM, Jaromil wrote: > > I'm an avid user of tiled desktops, in particular Awesome and > LarsWM, so I'll certainly make sure those work well, for my own > good. i3 user here. In case we ever need specific tweaks for that (eg. Debian somehow manages to introduce systemd dependencies on the i3 package) I'd be more than happy to step up. cheers - -- Stefan Ott http://www.ott.net/ -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2 iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJU8e7CAAoJENlTbTnJZqYo/8MQAJdnPMNCUPAvjZXNGOoO9o69 puf4nSZfiEkIWPQ9UvE+yRxhx0Tups3xpKXuoWR0m+o9pcyHMMjOZvPKsIBA//OD rE0Ok4NSTMwqxJc+xJplNPpkTgP67HQYQAPHUjOnnQN+Glw+X6NHzPaPizJ/C/tE 2kuITX0D3J0ynUFHjHQrWQRidKifr06ownEIs+U6kHO3ACuY2vMk1SEZCwh1qWzg nkNahpep1vzss2L5nRF4897qdMASCOuKWDgKWdhn9I+7NT5lV4mBSHGLhR8doVAJ GAcwtfD1m4EiA+sBN3YP+T0hJbpZCtGumCZJ0L0G237qSAhT0qKw8SPJFxe1NJJW dJkCJXanyIrGtIF7QkZQJkjdsCNa/nvyuyqQqBYP5/mcYjl+7R/+xfkwS7bux2Am FGKcODmifu8Hb1s82Y3tBfWBJ3V8T99+nmnBa1CF0VCdJWvLrgW2O5T823f0Ibk8 2/G2hpiQ+HEjVePEYb8Rf92YS3Qks89pvDafIplaBCcFN3+rbIfeSg+H8fhzYAMI foTdsh+WIufqHHTbA2bqUhGv1uhuvcILO7vqB2uNgtowtumkSoNzo8IGf4WRwwGK nPbaK56BtEkibnpRyexRzP/DjEC1jfBQpJNu/8YasvYfcw2rKq+mNaIaSG2PUK/V YrSeMLY1Kpf3/rjO7OKI =Thi9 -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
Le 28/02/2015 11:38, Jaromil a écrit : hi Didier, On Sat, 28 Feb 2015, Didier Kryn wrote: It seems we will have to wait a little for Mate, and maybe also for all the lightweight tiled DE's. we'll likely support all lightweight desktops just out of the box, I doubt they have hard dependencies on systemd. Enlightnement perhaps just needs a recompilation with some flags, fellow VUA Asbesto Molesto gathered some notes here https://lab.dyne.org/Enlightenment and package maintainers are very welcome to step forward for this one and Mate. I'm an avid user of tiled desktops, in particular Awesome and LarsWM, so I'll certainly make sure those work well, for my own good. I was expecting a base system with tricky DE install but it seems we'll have a host of choices from the beginning! wah. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
On 02/22/2015 07:38 PM, Jaromil wrote: dear Jonathan, you have very good concerns on usability. After Devuan 1.0 we might be able to quick fix desktop behaviour, I bet many developers involved will go do respins and blends. however, for what concerns us here and at least until the Devuan 1.0 release (which is a base system) you might have more chances interacting with the XFCE and the Mate projects, which are the main desktop environments Devuan offers on liveboot/install and are used by many other distributions. This way your contribution would have also a broader reach. Ok, that sounds like a plan. But which is the default DE for Devuan-- XFCE or Mate? Also, I'll respond below to Steve (I can't find his message so I just pasted it from the list archive...) On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 20:11:12 + (UTC) Jonathan Wilkes wrote: Hi Jonathan, I rearranged the order of your post... / >> >> Anyhow, if any of those three are missing under the planned system, >> I'd be happy to help try to rectify the situation. / That's supremely cool. Discoverability is *everything*!!! Hi Steve, I think discoverability is everything, too. But I'd like to differentiate discoverability from "re-discoverability", which is what you get everytime Gnome 3 changes its design-mind, or when Yahoo Mail feels like their interface isn't cool enough. I picked these three features because I don't think they are overly complex, and they should be able to provide a decent and stable experience for a decade or more into the future. / >> Hello,A few questions about the GUI for Devuan... >> 1) In the default desktop environment for Devuan, will there be an >> icon or other discoverable item the user can click to see a list of >> available wifi network connections?/ I can do a lot of the non-gui stuff on this, should we decide that NetworkManager and Wicd aren't sufficient. Basically, "iwlist scanning" yields the list, complete with everything needed to show the security type and signal strength. wpa-supplicant and the *horribly documented* wpa_cli to make and break connections and handle passwords. I'd envision this as a python-Tk program (connection time is huge compared to executation time, so performance isn't an issue). There's no reason for this system to use dbus. A few questions: * I've read about network manager being designed so that multiple front-ends can be used. But is the opposite possible? Is there a way to take network manager applet's taskbar dropdown list GUI and use that front-end on something else? * if not, would pyqt be a possibility? Tk is of course super-easy to incrementally develop, but it's missing crucial elements like theming, native dialogs, and a slew of other stuff that becomes a brick-wall if you want anything more than a minimally-working GUI. / >> 2) When the DE's main menu pops >> up, will the user be able to _immediately_ start typing characters >> and see a list of applications filtered to match what is being >> typed?/ Dmenu does exactly that: http://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/ Dmenu is a productivity fountain without peer, that can be installed on *any* Linux. I wouldn't be caught dead without an easy hotkey to Dmenu. I tweak my dmenu to scroll vertically down the screen instead of horizontally across the top. I also tweak it for max visibility foreground and background, for quick recognition. If you know the name of the executable and don't need to pass it arguments, dmenu is the king of discoverability. I also user UMENU: http://troubleshooters.com/umenu/index.htm UMENU is a spectacular menu program with single keystroke actuation and prompted argument substitution (so you can input arguments). It can be used not only for a "start menu", but also to bolt a discoverable front-end any complex command. However, UMENU has a nightmare deployment process, so less than 100 people use it. Sooner or later, I'll rewrite it to use something other than its current EMDL, so it can be easily deployed anywhere. I'll probably use a directory/subdirectory/file config hierarchy like djb uses. // Great! I'll check these two out and see how they work. One great thing about this type of tool is that it doesn't punish the user for discovering and learning the tool. When you click a start menu and navigate some categories, you get worse and worse productivity the more you use it-- both the latency and the overhead of navigating become obstacles. But with these kinds of tools you can eventually learn to bring up an app faster than your eye can track the animation of the tool. A graphical tool that can rival the speed of the command line in any domain is a decent design IMO. Btw-- I do not mena to imply _replacing_ a point-and-click menu or right-click menu in a DE./ >> 3) In the default desktop environment for Devuan, when the user >> clicks the "Super" key (often has the Windows icon on it) will the >> DEs main menu pop up?
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
hi Didier, On Sat, 28 Feb 2015, Didier Kryn wrote: > It seems we will have to wait a little for Mate, and maybe also > for all the lightweight tiled DE's. we'll likely support all lightweight desktops just out of the box, I doubt they have hard dependencies on systemd. Enlightnement perhaps just needs a recompilation with some flags, fellow VUA Asbesto Molesto gathered some notes here https://lab.dyne.org/Enlightenment and package maintainers are very welcome to step forward for this one and Mate. I'm an avid user of tiled desktops, in particular Awesome and LarsWM, so I'll certainly make sure those work well, for my own good. ciao ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
On Fri, 27 Feb 2015, Jonathan Wilkes wrote: Ok, that sounds like a plan. But which is the default DE for Devuan-- XFCE or Mate? It will be Xfce4, since Mate is somehow too big. Later on, we may still want to have a respin installer and/or liveCD with Mate default and anyway Mate is simple to apt-get install. However the default DE will be Xfce4 and we are also contributing to its code in order to keep it away from systemd lockin (thanks Dima!) https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11574 Many VUAs love Xfce4 and its team is really a good example of talented open source developers with good concerns about usability, compatibility and resource consumption. we may want to backport a newer package ourselves with a more actual 4.12 (volunteers welcome). It seems we will have to wait a little for Mate, and maybe also for all the lightweight tiled DE's. Having to wait with Xfce4 is not a pain. It is simple, has a neat look and any beginner should find it easy to use. It's look and its panel are easy to configure. Xfce4 is probably the best choice for a default, both for the technical reasons given by Jaromil, and for its usability by everybody. Thanks again Dima! Didier ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
On Fri, 27 Feb 2015, Jonathan Wilkes wrote: >Ok, that sounds like a plan. > >But which is the default DE for Devuan-- XFCE or Mate? It will be Xfce4, since Mate is somehow too big. Later on, we may still want to have a respin installer and/or liveCD with Mate default and anyway Mate is simple to apt-get install. However the default DE will be Xfce4 and we are also contributing to its code in order to keep it away from systemd lockin (thanks Dima!) https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11574 Many VUAs love Xfce4 and its team is really a good example of talented open source developers with good concerns about usability, compatibility and resource consumption. we may want to backport a newer package ourselves with a more actual 4.12 (volunteers welcome). ciao ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
On 02/22/2015 05:45 PM, Mark Maxwell wrote: On 22/02/15 20:11, Jonathan Wilkes wrote: Hello, A few questions about the GUI for Devuan... 1) In the default desktop environment for Devuan, will there be an icon or other discoverable item the user can click to see a list of available wifi network connections? 2) When the DE's main menu pops up, will the user be able to _immediately_ start typing characters and see a list of applications filtered to match what is being typed? 3) In the default desktop environment for Devuan, when the user clicks the "Super" key (often has the Windows icon on it) will the DEs main menu pop up? I put these three features in order of importance for newcomers and non-technical users to have control over their machines. #1 is vital because it makes the entire knowledge-base on the web (potentially) available for users so they can troubleshoot problems outside of network connectivity, even if they haven't a clue what an ESSID is. #2 is important because responsive natural language searches are ubiquitous, simple to understand, explain, and remember, especially when compared with branches of app categories (which are often quite arbitrary). #3 is certainly not vital at all, but its existence is a good indicator that the developers take usability seriously. You may be able to guess that I currently use Gnome 3 under Debian, because Gnome 3 includes all three features that I list. But please don't be mistaken-- I'm not looking to pitch Devuan on Gnome 3. Rather, I have neglected to uninstall Gnome 3 because as long as it does those three things it fulfills my needs as a user. I'd much prefer to use a distro like Devuan, where its community is reflecting upon the long-term maintainability of the system (and closely inspecting its source code). As long as it has a default DE with the three features above, I can switch over with virtually no pain. But more importantly, with those three features an entire class of non-technical users can have a safe, sane, and secure place from which to launch Chromium. I'd bet a large chunk of Lenovo's userbase has a desire for just such a system atm. :) Anyhow, if any of those three are missing under the planned system, I'd be happy to help try to rectify the situation. Best, Jonathan ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng For #3 I find that its the only key not mapped on the entire keyboard, so its 'Mine'. I map it as my control key for personal keymapings. To map it to a single function of bringing up a menu which is already available with a right click anywhere on the background of from the bar seems like a great loss in functionality. Its the only good thing about the windows key. Hi Mark, In your case you'd have the added burden of re-mapping the menu shortcut from "Super" to empty string. I don't understand how that would end up in a "great loss in functionality". -Jonathan ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
On Tue, 24 Feb 2015, Steve Litt wrote: > As far as I know, wicd depends on dbus, which is why I'm thinking of > making a substitute. As mentioned in a previous thread, we are leaning towards connman these days one VUA is active patching some details in it and keeping contact with its upstream developers. Also my tests of connman-ui on xfce in the pre-alpha iso lead to a well usable substitute of nm-applet I don't recommend going for a ground-up development of such a component with the hope of having it included in Devuan 1.0. We do have different priorities and the choice between wicd and connman is rich enough for now. ciao -- Jaromil, Dyne.org Free Software Foundry (est. 2000) We are free to share code and we code to share freedom Web: https://j.dyne.org Contact: https://j.dyne.org/c.vcf GPG: 6113 D89C A825 C5CE DD02 C872 73B3 5DA5 4ACB 7D10 Confidential communications: https://keybase.io/jaromil ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
On Tue, 24 Feb 2015 17:06:47 +0100 Didier Kryn wrote: > I discovered the name of wicd on this list recently. I didn't > try it, therefore I can't compare, but it looks that it has more > diverse interfaces than wpasupplicant, CLI, GUI and even Curses. I > will probably try it the first time I install Devuan on a laptop. > > I imagine neither wpasupplicant nor wicd will be infected by > Systemd, and you'll have the choice between them. > > Didier As far as I know, wicd depends on dbus, which is why I'm thinking of making a substitute. SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
Le 22/02/2015 21:11, Jonathan Wilkes a écrit : 1) In the default desktop environment for Devuan, will there be an icon or other discoverable item the user can click to see a list of available wifi network connections? 2) When the DE's main menu pops up, will the user be able to _immediately_ start typing characters and see a list of applications filtered to match what is being typed? 3) In the default desktop environment for Devuan, when the user clicks the "Super" key (often has the Windows icon on it) will the DEs main menu pop up? Dear Jonathan, Not sure everything gets installed by default. One of the bad things of Debian and others was that a lot of applications were installed by default, applications you don't even know they are there, and what they are for. These apps not only take space on your disk, but slow down or even complicate system updates by their sole presence. Suppose you haven't a wifi interface; why would you need a gui to configure it? I will only answer your first point, since I have nothing to add to what Steve Litt replied to the others. For the first question, I currently use three apps, wpa_supplicant, wpa_roam and wpa_gui, currently in two packages in Wheezy. wpa_supplicant talks to your wifi interface, taking instructions from its configuration file. It selects, from the list of wifi stations you have put in the config file, which one it can connect to. wpa_roam is a helper application which allows the system to invoke wpa_supplicant when your wifi interface detects a network. Description in the following howto: http://www.debuntu.org/how-to-wifi-roaming-with-wpa-supplicant/ wpa_gui is a helper GUI to fill the configuation file. You only need it when you must connect to a new station or something is going wrong. It can scan the network, so that you can select a station, then help you writing the properties of the station into the config file. You can also use it to connect/disconnect. I discovered the name of wicd on this list recently. I didn't try it, therefore I can't compare, but it looks that it has more diverse interfaces than wpasupplicant, CLI, GUI and even Curses. I will probably try it the first time I install Devuan on a laptop. I imagine neither wpasupplicant nor wicd will be infected by Systemd, and you'll have the choice between them. Didier ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
On 2015-02-22 20:11, Jonathan Wilkes wrote: > [...] > 2) When the DE's main menu pops > up, will the user be able to _immediately_ start typing characters > and see a list of applications filtered to match what is being > typed? > [...] Hello there, I am aware of two ways to achieve this, which are not mentioned in this thread yet. Both of it is used in the Xubuntu-based distro Voyager which is also using XFCE as default DE. Whiskermenu: http://www.leaseweblabs.com/2014/04/new-xfce-features-xubuntu-14-04-trusty-tahr/ Slingshot: http://www.noobslab.com/2014/06/slingscold-launcher-is-now-available.html Apart from that the usability team could also consider if they want to include a drop-down terminal like Tilda. A few XFCE linux distros also include a directory menu in the top panel by default, with the home user directory as base directory and * as file pattern to show all files and directories below the user folder. I think that's quite neat as well. Best, Wolfgang ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 20:11:12 + (UTC) Jonathan Wilkes wrote: Hi Jonathan, I rearranged the order of your post... > > Anyhow, if any of those three are missing under the planned system, > I'd be happy to help try to rectify the situation. That's supremely cool. Discoverability is *everything*!!! > Hello,A few questions about the GUI for Devuan... > 1) In the default desktop environment for Devuan, will there be an > icon or other discoverable item the user can click to see a list of > available wifi network connections? I can do a lot of the non-gui stuff on this, should we decide that NetworkManager and Wicd aren't sufficient. Basically, "iwlist scanning" yields the list, complete with everything needed to show the security type and signal strength. wpa-supplicant and the *horribly documented* wpa_cli to make and break connections and handle passwords. I'd envision this as a python-Tk program (connection time is huge compared to executation time, so performance isn't an issue). There's no reason for this system to use dbus. > 2) When the DE's main menu pops > up, will the user be able to _immediately_ start typing characters > and see a list of applications filtered to match what is being > typed? Dmenu does exactly that: http://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/ Dmenu is a productivity fountain without peer, that can be installed on *any* Linux. I wouldn't be caught dead without an easy hotkey to Dmenu. I tweak my dmenu to scroll vertically down the screen instead of horizontally across the top. I also tweak it for max visibility foreground and background, for quick recognition. If you know the name of the executable and don't need to pass it arguments, dmenu is the king of discoverability. I also user UMENU: http://troubleshooters.com/umenu/index.htm UMENU is a spectacular menu program with single keystroke actuation and prompted argument substitution (so you can input arguments). It can be used not only for a "start menu", but also to bolt a discoverable front-end any complex command. However, UMENU has a nightmare deployment process, so less than 100 people use it. Sooner or later, I'll rewrite it to use something other than its current EMDL, so it can be easily deployed anywhere. I'll probably use a directory/subdirectory/file config hierarchy like djb uses. > 3) In the default desktop environment for Devuan, when the user > clicks the "Super" key (often has the Windows icon on it) will the > DEs main menu pop up? I think the preceding is just a matter of hotkey assignment, and of course is a good idea. > I put these three features in order of > importance for newcomers and non-technical users to have control over > their machines. #1 is vital because it makes the entire > knowledge-base on the web (potentially) available for users so they > can troubleshoot problems outside of network connectivity, even if > they haven't a clue what an ESSID is. > #2 is important because > responsive natural language searches are ubiquitous, simple to > understand, explain, and remember, especially when compared with > branches of app categories (which are often quite arbitrary). One of the executables that comes with dmenu can take any sorted list and intelligently reduce with each user keystroke. Dmenu is modular, so one executable searches the execution path, delivering a sorted list of executables to the second executable, which reduces the list based on user keystrokes. The selection then gets processed by a third executable to run the program. Bottom line, dmenu could conceivably be used for a lot more than running programs. > #3 is > certainly not vital at all, but its existence is a good indicator > that the developers take usability seriously. You may be able to > guess that I currently use Gnome 3 under Debian, because Gnome 3 > includes all three features that I list. But please don't be > mistaken-- I'm not looking to pitch Devuan on Gnome 3. Rather, I > have neglected to uninstall Gnome 3 because as long as it does those > three things it fulfills my needs as a user. I'd much prefer to use > a distro like Devuan, where its community is reflecting upon the > long-term maintainability of the system (and closely inspecting its > source code). As long as it has a default DE with the three features > above, I can switch over with virtually no pain. But more > importantly, with those three features an entire class of > non-technical users can have a safe, sane, and secure place from > which to launch Chromium. I'd bet a large chunk of Lenovo's userbase > has a desire for just such a system atm. :) I hear you Jonathan! For new users and people whose core competancy isn't computers, discoverability is king, and discoverability is exactly what your three wishes provide. Moreover, discoverability is a timesaver for even the most experienced users, because nobody memorizes everything, and we all use new software sometimes. I can also help. SteveT Steve Litt* ht
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
dear Jonathan, you have very good concerns on usability. After Devuan 1.0 we might be able to quick fix desktop behaviour, I bet many developers involved will go do respins and blends. however, for what concerns us here and at least until the Devuan 1.0 release (which is a base system) you might have more chances interacting with the XFCE and the Mate projects, which are the main desktop environments Devuan offers on liveboot/install and are used by many other distributions. This way your contribution would have also a broader reach. in any case, thanks for sharing with us your recommendations! ciao ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
On Sun, Feb 22, 2015 at 05:31:34PM -0300, Renaud OLGIATI wrote: > On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 20:11:12 + (UTC) > Jonathan Wilkes wrote: > > > 1) In the default desktop environment for Devuan, will there be an icon or > > other discoverable item the user can click to see a list of available wifi > > network connections? > >#1 is vital because it makes the entire knowledge-base on the web > >(potentially) available for users so they can troubleshoot problems outside > >of network connectivity, even if they haven't a clue what an ESSID is. > > It should be easy to ship Devuan with a Wicd icon on the desktop... I'm still on Debian Jessie. I use XCFE and when it comes up there's a wicd icon on the icon bar at the top of the screen. Mouseover tell me I have a connection, or it's trying to connect, or something like that. Will that do? -- hendrik ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] three important UI features
On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 20:11:12 + (UTC) Jonathan Wilkes wrote: > 1) In the default desktop environment for Devuan, will there be an icon or > other discoverable item the user can click to see a list of available wifi > network connections? >#1 is vital because it makes the entire knowledge-base on the web >(potentially) available for users so they can troubleshoot problems outside of >network connectivity, even if they haven't a clue what an ESSID is. It should be easy to ship Devuan with a Wicd icon on the desktop... Cheers, Ron. -- Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses. -- H. L. Mencken -- http://www.olgiati-in-paraguay.org -- ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[Dng] three important UI features
Hello,A few questions about the GUI for Devuan... 1) In the default desktop environment for Devuan, will there be an icon or other discoverable item the user can click to see a list of available wifi network connections?2) When the DE's main menu pops up, will the user be able to _immediately_ start typing characters and see a list of applications filtered to match what is being typed?3) In the default desktop environment for Devuan, when the user clicks the "Super" key (often has the Windows icon on it) will the DEs main menu pop up? I put these three features in order of importance for newcomers and non-technical users to have control over their machines. #1 is vital because it makes the entire knowledge-base on the web (potentially) available for users so they can troubleshoot problems outside of network connectivity, even if they haven't a clue what an ESSID is. #2 is important because responsive natural language searches are ubiquitous, simple to understand, explain, and remember, especially when compared with branches of app categories (which are often quite arbitrary). #3 is certainly not vital at all, but its existence is a good indicator that the developers take usability seriously. You may be able to guess that I currently use Gnome 3 under Debian, because Gnome 3 includes all three features that I list. But please don't be mistaken-- I'm not looking to pitch Devuan on Gnome 3. Rather, I have neglected to uninstall Gnome 3 because as long as it does those three things it fulfills my needs as a user. I'd much prefer to use a distro like Devuan, where its community is reflecting upon the long-term maintainability of the system (and closely inspecting its source code). As long as it has a default DE with the three features above, I can switch over with virtually no pain. But more importantly, with those three features an entire class of non-technical users can have a safe, sane, and secure place from which to launch Chromium. I'd bet a large chunk of Lenovo's userbase has a desire for just such a system atm. :) Anyhow, if any of those three are missing under the planned system, I'd be happy to help try to rectify the situation. Best, Jonathan ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
