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Terminal Design Proposals

Contents

  1. Terminal Design Proposals
    1. Robert Schütte
      1. Designers
      2. Goals
        1. Primary
        2. Secondary
      3. Tentative Design
        1. Normal Terminal
        2. Droped Terminal
        3. Normal Terminal Dark Theme
      4. Comments
    2. Mathieu Jourdan
      1. Goals
        1. Primary
        2. Secondary
      2. Tentative Design
        1. Bookmarks
        2. Search
        3. Wheel
        4. Window menu
      3. Comments
    3. simple design update
      1. Designers
      2. Discussion
        1. Search Menu
        2. Terminal menu name
        3. Terminal size
        4. Terminal menu scope
        5. Hidding menu bar
        6. Handling profiles
      3. Goals
      4. Tentative design

Robert Schütte

Designers

Robert Schütte

Goals

Primary

Secondary

Tentative Design

Normal Terminal

The normal terminal window, when you start the terminal.

https://www.wuala.com/en/api/preview/Roba/Public/Terminal/terminal-main.png/?key=51OMe8ZgLj1K

Droped Terminal

This is the terminal Window, when you move the window up. A maximized Version without titlebar.

https://www.wuala.com/en/api/preview/Roba/Public/Terminal/terminal-shell.png/?key=51OMe8ZgLj1K

Normal Terminal Dark Theme

The normal terminal window, without tabs, but multiple windows.

https://www.wuala.com/en/api/preview/Roba/Public/Terminal/terminal-main-split-dark.png/?key=51OMe8ZgLj1K

Comments

Mathieu Jourdan

Goals

Primary

Make terminal consistent with other gnome software.

Secondary

Just replace the menubar?

Feature that differs with the current terminal:

Tentative Design

Bookmarks

User could change their current directory to one of his favourites, by using the same pane as in the file chooser or Nautilus.

terminal_bookmarks.png

Searchbar. Lacks Previous/Next for now.

terminal_search.png

Wheel

Something to make the menu bar more convenient.

terminal_wheel_menu.png

Window menu

I particularly like the terminal tiling proposal, so the "clone terminal" entry would create a second window with the same environment variables as the first one.

terminal_window_menu.png

Comments

AlexandreUltré --

Except those points, this looks like the terminal I'd like to use.

MathieuJourdan --

Thanks for your comments, Alexandre. You are totally right on all the points you raised. About the sidebar, this was only a question of personal preference =D

Some similar remarks have been made on #gnome-design, so I made a new proposal in the "simple design update" section below. I think it answers to your concerns, so does an other mockup published by AllanDay: https://raw.github.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups/master/terminal/terminal-menus.png

AlexandreUltré --

I think that menus in Allan's mock-up are better (because simpler), except maybe for the fullscreen (if we have a single window, why fullscreen in the window menu?). But your idea of a menu entry for keybord shortcuts is really good. Perhaps put it in the application menu?

MathieuJourdan --

Entry for keyboard shortcuts is not mine, it was an submenu of "Terminal" in Gnome Terminal 3.4, but has been moved to "Preferences" since. I can't figure out why Allan's mockups are simpler?

I missed the point about a dark theme in your first comment? Were you thinking about some kind of feature changing the window and terminal colors depending on the things we are doing in it?

AlexandreUltré --

So it's not the cheatsheet I imagined. Too bad… My turn now: the dark theme I spoke about was only… a dark theme. Nothing more than a white on black window instead of a black on white. That's better for the darkest hours of the day. Call it a “night mode” if you prefer. I already proposed such a thing in my GNOME Writer proposal. Now, about what makes Allan's mockups simpler, that's an overall impression. Maybe is it because it seems easier to find what to do with this interface. By example, he only propose one window menu (the contextual tab menu doesn't count), when you propose two. And there are separation rules in his menus. I guess it seems more organized. But as I said, this is only based on an overall impression. I'm not really what you can call a designer ;)

simple design update

Designers

Mathieu Jourdan

Discussion

Below are some usability bugs seen with Gnome-terminal 3.4 on Debian Sid.

Search Menu

I never thought one could want to search for strings in a terminal without using a pager or a text editor. Maybe it is useful for some user, though, but in this case this should probably be done through the same kind of search panel we find in other gnome applications.

Terminal menu name

Having a menu called "Terminal" in a window named "Terminal" is a bit strange.

Terminal size

At the bottom of the "Terminal" menu, there are 4 lines:

I cliked on some of these lines without saying any effect in the window. I search for information in the help pages, I found nothing. Later, I discovered that it had no effect because this was to set the window size and my window was maximized.

1. changing size is not relevant when maximized or fullscreen 2. the digit before the dimensions brings confusion and no information 3. changing the size and switching to fullscreen should be done through the same menu

Terminal menu scope

Changing the size (in characters) has effect on the whole window, e.g the window is not resized when you switch tabs. Changing of profiles has effects only on the current tab. So has "Reinitializing". User can't know in advance in which scope the settings will apply, hence he has to try multiple things to get (or not) the result he wants.

Hidding menu bar

The terminal menu bar is not really pleasant to see. So I click on "display" / "display the menu bar" to hide it. Fine. Now I want to edit my profile, so I need to display the menu bar again. Oops, I forgot to memorize the keyboard shortcut, how do I revert? Left click on the decoration bar? Nope. Right click? Maybe on the application icon, then? Nah ! It was right-click anywhere in the window, and the was not any keyboard shortcut to memorize in the "Display" menu!

Handling profiles

I would like to tune the terminal, change text font and colors... Where could I do this? Go to "display"? Hum no, it seems "display" allows to change the zoom level and switch to windowed from fullscreen. Maybe it's in terminal? Yeah, there is a submenu to change of profile, maybe that's the thing! But where do I configure those profiles!? Maybe this is in "Edit"? Yes ! Last line: "profile preferences"! Wait... The 4th line is "profiles"... Ok, let's click on profiles! Yes! I have a window which allows me to manage profiles, but doesn't not allow me to select the one to load.

Goals

Tentative design

terminal_menus.png

2024-10-23 11:03