Re: UX: Initial use cases & actions

[Alyssa Ross <hi@alyssa.is>]

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Vaida Plankytė <vaidaplankyte@gmail.com> writes:

> On Thu, Aug 6, 2026 at 3:50 AM Demi Marie Obenour <demiobenour@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 8/5/26 07:23, Vaida Plankytė wrote:
>> > On Thu, Jul 30, 2026 at 12:04 PM Alyssa Ross <hi@alyssa.is> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> * configuration? instance? I wish we had a better name for these things,
>> >>   even if it's agreed that it's not necessarily what we end up calling
>> >>   it to users.
>> >
>> > Agreed. I'm almost keen to just use "VM" internally because it's so
>> > much shorter to write, and explanations often end up mentioning the
>> > term as well as "persistent"/"non-persistent" several times a line, so
>> > it's a big space/cognitive saver. But maybe that says something about
>> > how user-facing terms, that'll appear in docs in potentially equally
>> > extensive explanations, should also be short and snappy. "Base app",
>> > "saved app" and "one-off app" or something.
>>
>> Qubes OS uses "Disposable VM".  What about "Disposable app"?
>
> Disposable is a good word, as people are familiar with what it means
> from general life contexts. I quite like "app" too!
>
> Is "window" an option, or would it conflict with how people would use
> applications in Spectrum? If you choose to open a new window from an
> app's menubar, does it live in the same instance or not? I feel it'd
> be more natural for people to think of "app" to denote the actual
> application, and "window" to denote an instance/VM, as they're likely
> to be familiar with that terminology, but I can also see how that
> could get confusing if "generic window" and "Spectrum window" terms
> don't align.

Unfortunately that generally opens a new window in the same instance,
and that's not something we can change, because we'd have to change how
every app works.  I definitely wouldn't want to overload "window" to
mean two different things!

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