While reading about some Project Topaz (aka GNOME 3.0) mockups I started thinking about a different way of working to create a new mail, a task, a blog entry or something. Here’s some mockups trying to illustrate the idea.
What if, instead of starting with choosing the right application or hunting down the right action from the menu hierarchy, and then start to fill in the blanks, one could start the other way round? Basically, start from the content.
Start from writing down the content, the whole purpose of doing whatever you were starting to do, in plain text or possibly rich text. Only after getting the main idea written down, move on to worry about getting the details right. Such as was the content intended as mail message, task, blog entry, something else…
Now, as we’re running on a system with abundant computing power, why not parse the simple text for essential things. Since we pretty much know the context of the text it’s easy to parse a limited set of known or expected things depending on the context, such as:
- Message
- To, Cc, Subject, …
- Contact
- Name, E-mail, …
- Appointment
- Date, Summary, …
- Task
- Summary, Due date, …
One could check for explicit keywords such as To: or just assume certain things based on the context, such as an Appointment having something resembling a date in the beginning.
And it doesn’t have to be perfect. Just parse what you can, do addressbook lookups using incomplete strings, and bring up the appropriate application, like Evolution composer, with recognized fields prefilled. The application can then ask the user to fill in missing details and resolve ambiguities.
Not sure if this would be usable, but on the surface it should enable you to get started with relevant issues quickly and handle the bureaucracy later while enabling the computer to handle much of it transparently.
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