Re: GEP-2 Theme Sets

[Bill Haneman <bill haneman sun com>]

"textshell" said:

> > I still think this suffers from "worst of both worlds" in that the
> > thumbnails are too small to be any more than memory aids, but they make
> > the list much longer so you have to scroll to see the choices.  Once a
> > user has seen the themes once, I don't see that the 'names' are an
> > insufficient mnemonic in themselves.
> > 
> > Clicking on each item is still, in Seth's mockup, the only way to get a
> > reasonably complete/accurate preview, the thumbnails are tiny, so it's
> > only a mnemonic and I think the cost in real estate and readability
> > outweighs the benefit.  As Seth points out, we would still want a
> > full-size preview pane, especially for accessibility (no point in
> > showing a reduced-size version of a low-vision theme ;-).
> > 
> > If scrolling through the list with the arrow keys is too slow, then we
> > might revisit the question of instant-apply; full-size previews could be
> > scrolled very quickly indeed.  Remember you don't have to "click" at all
> > to view the previews, just use the keyboard ;-)
> > 
> > Spacebar could "apply" (through its usual meaning of "activate item), 
> > so you would not have to navigate to/click on an 
> > "Apply" button either, though we might include one to make the 
> > non-instant-apply nature of the list visually explicit.
> > 
> 
> Well even if I'm repeating my thought: What would be wrong with a "full 
> size" preview that shows the theme the mouse is currently over? For key 
> nav we could use the same UI as for listboxes with multiple selections 
> that way even keynav users can easyly preview without applying all the 
> theme to the whole UI.

That sounds good to me too, I was only concerned that the "preview
thumbnails in the list" solution made the list items too large, and
would require lots of scrolling before the (undersized) previews were
visible.  Your suggestion elegantly solves that without coupling the
previews to the selection of list items (for keynav compliance we would
need to implement this with control-arrow, i.e. when list "focus" was
moved as opposed to just on selection of list items).  i.e. if the
preview changes on mouseover or control-arrow navigation of the list you
can see the previews without applying the themes - sounds good!

> Just tell me why this can't/shouldn't be done and I shut up... But i hope 
> this could improve the UI.

I agree.

-Bill
> 
> Martin H.