Re: To answer your question about the upcoming Style-Guide...

[George <jirka 5z com>]

On Wed, Jul 29, 1998 at 07:59:41PM +0200, Tom Vogt wrote:
> > > > 1) the icons WILL stay the same size
> > > a possibility to resize will be necessary in the long run. there simply is
> > > no other way to please everyone from 640x480 to 1600x1280.
> > 
> > well we're more looking at 800x600+ ... at that resolution it's still ok ..
> 
> sorry, but you're kidding, no?
> gnome WILL be used on about anything inbetween the two resolutions I
> mentioned, any bet. 640 is still quite common on laptops. if you think pda's
> we'll even go far below that. 1600 is quite common for 21" monitors or
> graphics workstations. I would almost bet we have at least one 1920x1600
> user here (raster? :) ).
> 
> plus things are moving to higher resolutions, if only for smoothness. who
> knows what the main res will be in 2001 ? and we ARE building for 2000+
> aren't we?

that's what the plus means ...  800x600 and MORE

for 640 and lower, most likely the apps will start in a special mode .. or
special smaller "pda" versions of the apps will be loaded

the point is .. we shouldn't fret about it being 100% as usable on a 640 as
it is on an 800

> > you have to consider that if the icons are small then the applets will
> > make the bar too wide and the icons will be hanging around in space ...
> 
> that's why I'd say "resize"

they will be hanging around if we resize ... apples won't be able to resize

> > resizing applets would be hard if not impossible ...
> 
> at a first step, it could be an actual scale (maybe with cache to save cpu
> time). but in the end, I guess there has to be a way to support different
> resolutions. hell, even windoze has at least the good intention with the
> "small" and "large" icon checkbox.

most applets that are in the cvs now are quite dependent on being able to use
the about 50 pixel width .. it's hard to do anything usefull otherwise ...

scaling is out .. these are X apps ... not pixmaps

> > it's very hard to write an applet under 48 pixel width .. and the panel
> > is supposed to be a dynamic entity
> 
> I agree that this is a hard thing implementation-wise. I still think it's
> necessary.

I don't see it as neccessary ... I don't care to spend too long on it, plus
applets are separate gtk apps, we have no control over them .. and they have to
be of some size to be usefull ... resizing has no meaning in the current panel,
as the applet can in theory be as large as it wants to be ...

it's almost impossible to force this on applets ... plust it would make most
applets most likely not conform to the "hints" they get about size .. and we'd
be out of luck again

> > not with the current setup of the menu ... unless they are afraid of the
> > interface, they WILL find out how to add stuff ...
> > 
> > anyway .. I did sit someone in front of it ... people do tinker, but 
> > it depends if the person wants to tinker or not .. a lot of people don't,
> > and won't no matter of how obvious you make it
> 
> that is true. and it's also true that it depends very much on who you put in
> front of the machine. my victims were novice users and other non-nerdish
> types, people who ARE afraid to tinker. should we take away most of the
> power of gnome from them? I thought the "for nerds only" button was one of
> the things we were trying to put away with?

if they are afraid to tinker then they WILL NOT TINKER ... we are not taking
away any of their power ... just because they simply decide pressing an "add"
button is scary

> see what I'm going at? exactly those people have to have it right in their
> face what they can do. these are people who will NEVER find out they can
> roll up the window in afterstep by clicking on the title bar, because unless
> there's a big red "click me!" button there, they won't even THINK about it.

in gnome we have a small button called "add" by a menu entry ... I guess that's
suggestive enough

> I really want to make gnome useful for THOSE people. everyone with half a
> clue can figure it out for himself.

such people won't figure out what they can do even if some default config is
made for them

George

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
George Lebl <jirka@5z.com> http://www.5z.com/jirka/
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