[Evolution-hackers] evolution's editors

[Anna M Dirks <anna ximian com>]

Greetings.

The purpose of this mail is to propose a new design for the contact, appointment, meeting and task editors, as used in Evolution 2.0. 

Why do these editors need to be redesigned? 

1. They are not currently compliant with the gnome HIG. 
2. They were not designed from a task-based perspective.
3. They are not consistent with one another.

Appointment Editor and Meeting Editor

The following screenshots demonstrate my proposal for the appointment editor (also the meeting editor.) Note that these screenshots are specifically for a meeting; if one were creating an appointment, the notebook would not have the attendees tab. 

NB: I am obviously missing accelerators and using inappropriate icons in some places. I am aware of this. Please try not to concentrate on the icons/accelerators -- they are easily fixed. 

http://primates.ximian.com/~anna/editors/meet-basics.png
http://primates.ximian.com/~anna/editors/meet-attendees.png
http://primates.ximian.com/~anna/editors/meet-reminders.png
http://primates.ximian.com/~anna/editors/meet-recur.png

Explanation:
For now, please do not worry about the reminders page. I'll send a separate mail out later today which details the working of that page. 

On the recurrence page, the "select dates" button should pop down a minicalendar, a la the current "Add" button in the current exceptions frame. 

On the attendees page, the "Show schedules" button open the scheduling widget (currently the "Scheduling" tab in its own window. The advantage of doing this is that people who want to use that tool can now do it *and* also view the list of attendees in full at the same time. (Currently, since both pages are packed into a notebook, one can only see one page at a time.) Further, the "Contacts" button on this page should open the select names dialog. A better label for this button may well be needed.             

Contact Editor

http://primates.ximian.com/~anna/editors/contact-basic.png
http://primates.ximian.com/~anna/editors/contact-personal.png
http://primates.ximian.com/~anna/editors/contact-mailaddy.png

Explanation:
Yes, I know, it is a big dialog. It is much, much more task based than it used to be, though; most of the time when you add a new contact, the only (or primary) information that you care about is his or her email/phone/im data. This design makes adding that info simple. It isn't actually very much bigger than the previous contact editor was (in terms of total area). 

Task Editor

http://primates.ximian.com/~anna/editors/task-basic.png
http://primates.ximian.com/~anna/editors/task-status.png

Explanation: 
Not a lot to say about this one. The "assign to" button should pop up the select names dialog, allowing one to pick contacts from her addressbook. 

Thoughts? 

Anna