proposal to remove the "Start Here" icon

[Brent Fox]

On Fri, 2004-07-16 at 19:20, Mike Fedyk wrote:
> Brent Fox wrote:
> 
> >I propose that we remove the "Start Here" icon from the default desktop
> >for the following reasons:
> >
> >- It presents the same choices that the Main Menu does, just in a
> >different way.  This is potentially confusing and inconsistent.  The
> >Menu is a much faster way to launch apps anyway.
> >  
> >
> But it's nice to have one window with all of the "panels" available for 
> double clicking on.  It's a pain to have to go through the menu to get 
> to each pref panel especially on low resolution.

I agree that the Main Menu is not a very good way of browsing all the
configuration options.  I'll try to explain more below.

> 
> >- The name "Start Here" implies that there it will take you to a set of
> >steps to set up your desktop, but it doesn't do that.
> >  
> >
> But it does.  It gives you the preferences and system settings in a 
> window, which some people prefer to the menus.

Nope.  System settings is the wrong place to "Start".  If changing the
preferences is the first thing a user needs to do, then we've picked the
wrong defaults.  If the name was "Control Panel" or something like that,
fine.  

> 
> >- It's basically useless.  :)
> >  
> >
> Allowing another way to get the same window should still be there though.

Why must there be two different ways of viewing configuration options? 
I think we should either present the configuration options in the Menu
or in a Control Panel, but not both.  To be honest, I think either
choice would be ok but having both is inconsistent.


How about this:

- Remove "Start Here" icon from the desktop.  Instead, call it "Control
Panel" and put it in the Main Menu just below "Browse Filesystems". 
Make it browse just "Preferences" and "System Settings" - not
"Applications".

- Remove the "Preferences" and "System Settings" menus from the Main
Menu. This would remove some serious clutter in the Menu.



Just some thoughts,
   Brent



> >I think a case could be made for a first-run desktop tutorial kind of
> >thing, but "Start Here" as it currently exists is not it.  I propose
> >that we remove this icon for FC3test2 and see if anybody complains.
> >  
> >
> Maybe "start here" should be renamed to "Control Panel" or something.
> 
> While it isn't a step through introduction to the system, it does 
> provide an alternate view in the "spacial" way.
> 
> You're not taking away the "start-here:///" target in nautilus are you?
> 
> Mike
>