Re: Review of Keybindings [Re: Dia's user interface]

[Lars Clausen <lrclause cs uiuc edu>]

On Fri, 3 May 2002, James K. Lowden wrote:
> On 02 May 2002 09:26:15 -0500 "Lars Clausen" <lrclause cs uiuc edu>
> wrote:
> > Could you mark the widgets somehow so that the connection between values
> > in the prefs structure and widgets isn't hardcoded?  That would make it
> > easier to change once the dialog gets too big.
>
> I agree with Larry Wall about laziness, and I consider hardcoding to be
> work.  I'll look for an intelligent, extensible answer, a/k/a
> "cleverness".  No worries.  

The trick is to be lazy yet simple.  "Make it work, make it right, make it
fast."

> > I can see us pretty soon being in need of a vertical layout, but we must
> > make sure to make it easy to figure out.  Separate parts for the tree
> > dialog, sheets dialog, and new diagrams doesn't seem too bad.  
>
> That demarcation makes sense to me.  
>
> BTW, is there a notion of canvas or diagram preferences, or templates,
> sort of like Dia style sheets?  It occurred to me today that I have
> (non-Dia) diagrams in which the diagram holds defaults for the objects.
> Different diagrams, intentionally, have different rules for fonts,
> colors, arrow headings, and lots of other things besides.  

There is currently no such notion.  It's something to keep in mind for the
future. 

> On layout.  It may be that you can see further than I can.  The primary
> advantage of the vertical layout (pioneered by Netscape?) is that it can
> accomodate many more entries than a tabbed dialog.  OTOH, tabbed dialogs
> require less screen real estate, and are directly supported by Glade.

You know, I just noticed that you can have a tabbing widget with the tabs
to the left.  It's not quite a tree, but with the reorganization we talked
about earlier, it would probably be nicer, and it should be easy to change
into a tree if so desired.  I believe the tree widget is getting an
overhaul in Gtk2.0, so that change may need to wait until then.

> I find dialogs with more than one tab layer disconcerting to use, and I
> think tab lists with little arrows on the end to get to other, hidden
> tabs (because they don't all fit) are a nusiance.

Top-tabbing is just bad, for the above reasons.  Left-tabbing is better,
but will eventually need to be replaced by a tree.  Which should be easy.

> I won't paint you into any corners, Lars.  I'm just saying that until Dia
> 1.0, I wouldn't fret about changes in the organization and appearance of
> the preferences dialog.  

Indeed.  And since 1.0 will (as it looks right now) use Gtk2.0, we should
consider the possibilities there before settling on a format.

-Lars

-- 
Lars Clausen (http://shasta.cs.uiuc.edu/~lrclause)| Hårdgrim of Numenor
"I do not agree with a word that you say, but I   |----------------------------
will defend to the death your right to say it."   | Where are we going, and
    --Evelyn Beatrice Hall paraphrasing Voltaire  | what's with the handbasket?