Re: gnome-about-me

[Ken Harris <ken bitpoetry com>]

On Wed, 2004-09-22 at 04:06, Gustavo J. A. M. Carneiro wrote:
[...]
> Labels should always be left aligned.  It makes them easier to read, as
> the HIG says somewhere.

Ah, no, that's not quite what the Gnome Human Interface Guidelines say.

In fact, they even say[1] when to right-align labels: "If most of the
labels in a group greatly differ in length, right-align them instead, so
that the controls do not end up too far away from their corresponding
labels."

The idea seems to be to put labels next to the controls they label,
unless there would be a lot of labels with close-but-not-quite-equal
lengths, in which case you left-justify them to avoid a jagged edge.

I think labels such as "Room" and "Home Phone" differ quite a bit in
length, and "New Password" and "Retype New Password" even more so, and
right-aligning them is correct.  But, of course, it's a judgement call.


- Ken


[1]: http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/1.0/design-window.html