[Usability] Compliance to GNOME UI Patterns of Cross-Platform Apps

[Allan Caeg <allancaeg gmail com>]

Hello,

Mozilla is coming up with a new Add-ons Manager UI for Firefox. I was asked what Linux-specific stuff should be designed and how much should be specified, because the look and feel depends on the DE's settings. I said that all I can think of at that time is that it should follow the GTK+ "skinning" of XUL like how other XUL elements do it, because the Add-ons Manager doesn't yet (in Firefox 4.0 Beta 4).

After looking at the Add-ons Manager a while ago, it looks like it's a bit alienated in my GNOME desktop. Apparently, other than the lack of skinning, it's because of the widgets (or however they should be called) that I don't usually see on other apps. Perhaps, Firefox would fit more in the GNOME desktop if it followed the UI Patterns. 

Right now, the UI Patterns could use some help (see the Etherpad page). In the future, cross-platform apps can refer to it. Right now, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that we can simply assess which UI elements are fit and not. 

Should we encourage cross-platform apps like Firefox to follow GNOME's UI Patterns? This *could* be an issue because GNOME isn't the only DE, so this solution may not be beneficial for KDE and maybe environments.

Thoughts?


-- 
Regards,
Allan
http://www.google.com/profiles/AllanCaeg#about

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