Re: [Usability] [RFC] Announcing: Control-Center-GUI 0.1

[Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org>]

<quote who="Jody Goldberg">

> 2.10 will include an updated variant of the old ximian OSX style flat
> layout.

I noticed that was changing, but it looks a bit... Wacky in the current
tarball release. ;-)

> It does look ideal with the default arrangement of .desktop files.   Jeff,
> Chrisian raises some reasonable points with his tab based design.  The OSX
> style layout flounders badly when the number of capplets grows larger than
> about 4 x 5.  Enforcing that limit requires a white-list or you end up
> with windows style random capplet additions with every new application.  A
> promising solution for the remainder is an 'Other' tab.

OS X has an 'Other' category, designed to fit the screen height, which works
reasonably well:

  ----------------------
  Category
  [ ]  [ ]  [ ]  [ ] [ ]
  ----------------------
  Category
  [ ]  [ ]
  ----------------------
  Other
  [ ]  [ ]  [ ]
  ----------------------

A tab for each category hides icons unnecessarily, requiring another click
to even find out what's there, let alone click it. :-) Hard to feel like you
have an overview of things when they're stacked up in piles (which is what a
notebook is).

- Jeff

[1] thanks, rml

-- 
GUADEC 2005: Stuttgart, Germany                      http://2005.guadec.org/
 
                   <boc> i wish i could write good flames
                 <jwz> boc: you can't win if you don't play