Re: PROPOSAL: GNOME Nettool for GNOME 2.8

[Luca Ferretti <elle uca libero it>]

Il ven, 2004-06-04 alle 22:56, Germán Poó Caamaño ha scritto:
> El vie, 04-06-2004 a las 19:22, +0200, Luca Ferretti escribió:
> > Il ven, 2004-06-04 alle 13:39, Rodrigo Moya ha scritto: 
> > > On Fri, 2004-06-04 at 12:18 +0200, Luca Ferretti wrote:
> > > > Il mar, 2004-06-01 alle 18:14, Rodrigo Moya ha scritto:
> > > > > Hi
> > > > > 

<snip>

> > - status bar is the GnomeAppBar widget with progress bar active (see
> > Feedback chapted in HIG 1.0 or DRAFT). The progress bar (activity
mode)
> > give a visual feedback that the tool is running. Message are is
useful
> > to place menu item's tooltips and eventually other info
> 
> AFAIR, GnomeAppBar is not recomended and in the near future it
> will be deprecated.

:-| I'll re-read HIG->Feedback chapter. IHMO a thobber-like (functional,
not UI) can be useful.

> > [...]
> > - list: see HIG->Controls->Tabbed Notebooks. Just a question.
Alphabetic
> > order?
> 
> What about popular or common use order?  With alphabetic order, What
it
> will happen when the tool will be translated? if could be confusing if
> someone is trying to give support but with the english version and
> the user with spanish version.

Reasonable. I was assuming that no one calls those tools with a
translated name. IHMO ping & co. are universal constants ;-)

> > - ping: this tool's UI is very different form others. You have 2
output
> > areas (list and summary) and ideally you need 3 input lines:
> > 
> >         Network address:  [_______________|v]
> >         [x] Send a limited number of requests
> >             Send [5  #] requests
> >         
> > So the hack "set the request number to 0 to send infinite pings".
Note
> > that average-user will not need to send infinite ping, 
> 
> infinite is not "infinite" at all.  Just 100 pings.  We would like to
> be 
> net friendly :-)

So, what about remove the number of pings setting and send, mhh, always
20 pings? If you need special ping options, well, open your Terminal.
This is a simple GUI tool. Eventually keep a GConf key to set this
parameter.

-----------------

There are 2 notes that I forgot good stuff for a couple of bugzilla
entry.

1. Add help for application & tools

        This help should explain in a neat-but-not-so-deep way what's is
        the scope of each tool. Something like a brief introduction:
        "The <emphasis>ping</emphasis> tool is typically used to
        understand if an host is a working node of a network. This tool
        sends some request to the target host. If the target host
        replies to those request, it's working. [...] The response time
        can help to analyze the performance of the network."
        
        And of course "For an advanced use, call the
        <command>ping</command> from the command line. For more info see
        the <link linkend="manpage://ping">ping man page</link>."

2. HIGfication of alerts.

         __________________________
        |       Error              |
        |--------------------------|
        | %s: Command not found    |
        |                          |
        |                [ Close ] |
        |__________________________|
        
        IMHO this one is wrong. If the program is not installed, why its
        tab appears in Nettool window? Or, at least, why I can fill the
        entry and launch the tool only to see a "Sorry" alert?
        
        Solution one: remove a tab on startup id a tool is not available
        (is HIG happy for this?)
        
        Solution two: make the "input" area of the unavailable tool
        insensible, and sostitute the output area with an label to
        explain.
        
         _______________________________
        |        Error                  |
        |-------------------------------|
        | The host '%s' cannot be found |
        |                               |
        |                     [ Close ] |
        |_______________________________|
        
        a. s/Close/OK button
        b. Add the secondary text, providing further details [*]
        
         __________________________________________
        |        Error                             |
        |------------------------------------------|
        | The host cannot be found                 | <- using <b><big>
        |                                          | <- a \n
        | The host '%s' cannot be found. Maybe it  | <- no markups
        | not exist or is not available. Verify    |
        | if you you wrote it correctly            |
        |                                          |
        |                                   [ OK ] |
        |__________________________________________|
        

        
        
[*] a good mantra for secondary texts is in the Apple's own developer
guide to the differences between Windows and Mac OS X: "clear dialogs in
Mac OS X communicate to the user: 1) what happened, 2) why it happened,
and 3) what to do about it."

See http://developer.apple.com/ue/switch/windows.html