[Usability] HIG: "Check Boxes" section

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt myrealbox com>]

I've just submitted a patch for the HIG bug "Checkboxes: use affirmative
phrases as labels" <http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=320537>.
While in that section, I noticed many small omissions and other
problems.
<http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/draft_hig_new/controls-check-boxes.html>

      * There is no recommendation against the (apparently) common error
        of implementing groups of checkboxes with the behavior of radio
        buttons.

      * The screenshots appear to be from GTK 1.

      * There is no statement that a checkbox should almost always have
        a label (or what the exceptions are), and there is no statement
        that this label should always be after the checkbox (to the
        right, in LTR languages), rather than before (as currently seen
        in Inkscape).

      * The sentence "Use sentence capitalization for check box labels,
        for example Use custom font." unwittingly encourages the common
        error of ending a checkbox label with a period.

      * The example of when to use radio buttons instead of a checkbox
        encourages stupid configuration options:
                Status bar progress indicator position: ( ) Left  (*)
                Right
        (Coincidentally, a bug report asks for a recommendation on that
        exact issue. <http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=153030>)

      * "Label a group of check boxes with a descriptive heading" is
        very vague. For example, it should recommend wording a heading
        label so as to minimize the length of the checkbox labels. (See
        Gimp's "Image Window Appearance" Preferences panel for an
        example of maddening repetition in checkbox labels that could be
        prevented by a better-worded heading label.)

      * When discussing listboxes of checkbox items, "you probably also
        need to think about how to simplify your user interface" ignores
        their legitimate use for collections of variable size (e.g.
        playlists), and doesn't give any alternative suggestions (e.g. a
        multi-item text field with auto-complete).

I'd like to revise this section to fix all these issues. Is that ok?

-- 
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/