thaeger's blog

When will ZENworks manage Vista? An interview with Director of product management Martin Buckley ZENworks Product Management is now online.

How often do we Linux advocates and enthusiasts hear the complaint that Linux lacks the polish and refinement that users expect from their desktop? For most end users, it doesn’t matter how good the underlying software is. If the interface sucks, then the software itself sucks. While it may pain some avid Linux adherents to say it, this is part of the reason why desktop Linux has yet to catch on with a broader set of users: Linux has struggled for years to come out of the woods and be perceived as visually appealing and pleasant to use.

Those who read this blog probably know that Interaction Design matters a lot to me. It has been one of the things I have advocated extensively in my work with desktop Linux. To be sure, part of why I still like working for Novell* is that the desktop team at Novell continues to produce not only great technical advancements, but also continuous improvements in the look and feel of the desktop. The new Main Menu for Gnome that debuted with SLED10 showed how studying user interaction with the desktop can result in a strikingly improved interface. (I don’t kid myself here–there are many who have vocalized their preference for Gnome’s traditional Applications-Places-System menu. But, many do like it.)

I’m pleased to share that the desktop design team at Novell is working on further improvements to the original Main Menu. The video below comes from the upcoming SLED10 Service Pack 1 as it looks in the current internal beta 3. (The unreleased status means that this is not necessarily the final product, and things may change from what you see today.

Video information:

• The video is a 12.1 MB Ogg Theora file.
• I recommend using something like Totem for viewing. (Helix/RealPlayer did not play the video very smoothly.)
• I narrated the video using a small PC headset rather than a professional microphone, and I did no post-production editing. So, it’s kind of rough.
• If the video link is broken, please leave a comment. then I will put it on a different host.

*Yes, I say “still” that is an admission that I have been challenged with a certain, recently-cemented partnership

Related Posts:

• …they’re brewing up some polish…
• Show Me That New GNOME Main Menu
• Customizing the GNOME Main Menu
• Products and Projects: What’s in a Name?

So you don’t like the SLED10’s Main Menu–you prefer the traditional Applications-Places-System menu in Gnome. A few people have commented to me that they hope that SLED doesn’t force them to use the new menu. Rest assured, SLED10 provides you choice on that.

I made a quick video to show that, no, you do not have to use default Main Menu in SLED10. With a couple quick clicks you can change it back to the way you like.

Video information:

• The video is a 2 MB Ogg Theora file.
• Windows and Mac users consult this page.
• On Linux, I recommend using something like Totem for viewing. (Helix/RealPlayer did not play the video very smoothly.)
• There is no audio on this file.

I’m inspecting easly internal betas of the first service pack for SLED10, and it’s looking very cool. Before getting into some of its features, I want to give a little preview what apparently will be an overall theme for the service pack: stupendous amounts of polish.

People regularly tell me that they think SLED10 is by far the most polished looking Linux desktop available. Many of these comments come from people who primarily use some distribution other than SLED. So, if you are one of those people who loves to see how glossy desktop Linux is becoming, allow me to share with you a look at some of the finely detailed minutia in Service Pack 1’s visual appeal.

The July 2006 SLED10

Here’s the Computer button in the original SLED10:

With a single button replacing the standard three menus of the GNOME desktop, it sported some nice visual elements, such as the slight shading effects. A clean font and anti-aliasing make the text look very smooth, and the Tango-themed icons add to the friendliness of the overall appeal.

Here’s the same button, after being clicked:

When you click the button, the button outline appears, and the Main Menu pops up (here we see just the blue border of the whole menu) and casts a slight shadow on the button.

So all in all, nice visuals. Can they be improved upon?

Service Pack One for SLED10

Here how the computer button looks in the current beta of SLED10 Service Pack 1:

The icons look to have been brightened up just a bit. The upper edge of the panel (that’s the bar on which the Computer button is located) is a touch more pronounced from a slightly thicker shadow that sports a smoothly blended fading effect.

Here I have flown the mouse pointer over the Computer button:

When the mouse pointer flies over the Computer button, it takes on a pleasing shade of blue so that you can see exactly where you need to click. (Previously, the button boundaries showed up only after you had clicked it, and it became a metallic tan color.) This new way functions a lot better for a user who might not at first have understood that there is a button there. Now, when a user flies the pointer over the button, it says, “Hey, you can interact with me.”

Summary

The changes I show here are certainly small and subtle, and at first blush, such over-attention to detail may seem frivolous. but from what I have seen so far, they are pervasive across the desktop in Service Pack 1. When you use it, the extra gloss is everywhere, and makes the whole product feel like it is a very advanced system.

There’s more to it than just, gloss though. If you consider the investment, care, and discipline that has to go into such attention to detail, there will likely be a correlation in technical features that really shine, too. (How many cool innovations has the Macintosh driven over the years? It seems to me that during the periods that Apple seemed to have lost its way with regard to design, their technology started to fall behind the curve, too.) I would argue that you may not be able to implement great design unless you are also thinking a lot about the technology that supports it. Shoddy products that look so slick at first quickly lose their appeal when you actually interact a little more familiar with the platform.

That of course means that I need to show some of the interface improvements that are backed by features. So watch this space–I’ll try to cover some of that as we lead up to the eventual release of the service pack.

On February 13, we have Martin Buckley back in the recording studio to answer some questions about Novell ZENworks, like when it will manage Windows Vista and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10.If you want to submit a question for the interview, please post it on this upcoming interview notice.