Friends-- I've been using gnome-shell for a couple months now (and computers for almost 30 years) and there are a couple things I hope you adjust as you go along.
First of all I am a generalizing thinker. It occurs to me that the Activities overlay is like nothing so much as the XP Start Menu. It has all the same components. We have reinvented the wheel, and Lo! It is round! Research says there are four main personality types / learning styles. How about optimizing the shell for different thinking styles? You already have Search, and a Recently Used space for both apps and files. That covers people who think a couple different ways. But be careful, please, as you whittle down non-essentials, not to take away the best parts of Linux. Don't let user-friendliness become a creeping fog that hides the transparency we love. If Windows and Mac are like black boxes, Linux is kind of like a grandfather clock where you can see the gears. My solution? From my point of view what I use most (on any OS I'm on at the moment) is the Tree sidebar in the file browser. I like to organize my thoughts in files and directories. How about, instead of just trying to make the best window manager possible, you combine functionalities with the file browser? When the overlay comes up it should have the functionality of the Nautilus sidebar, give or take. That means if I want a tree menu, or a semitransparent icon overlay inside a directory, that's an option. I know, that's been the default since Windows 3. Is that a bad thing? There you have it, kind of. Different navigation styles for different folks. Search, file types (which at this point is your App menu), history, and logical organization. I really like the new shell. I find myself hunting for that hot corner (and being disappointed) when I'm at work or the college on a borrowed Windows box. Besides, I don't know how to uninstall it :D It's kind of Wii-like. That's a good direction, IMHO. I wouldn't mind more icons (as an option), like a phone. If I could make a Christmas wish for a couple more things it'd be that I hope you guys are working on making the overlay skinnable (e.g. CSS) and that you're focusing on whittling down the number of clicks or mouseovers it takes to begin a given task. Hope that's an encouragement, Cool runnings, Coby _______________________________________________ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list