[Evolution-hackers] Re: Attachment UI Improvements

[Rodney Dawes <dobey novell com>]

On Thu, 2005-05-05 at 16:01 -0400, Nat Friedman wrote:
> Another thing which Rodney did not mention is that the text in the
> attachment bar needs to be changed.  Currently it says "<b>1</b> File
> Attached" when a file is attached.  Sometimes attachments are not files,
> however, as when I forward a mail to someone.  
> 
> The attachment zone header should say "<b>1</b> Attachment" instead.

Actually, I think it would be better if we just got rid of the expander.
If the attachment area is always in view when there are attachments,
there is no real need to replicate this data with a visible label. For
purposes of accessibility, we can set an internal label for ATK to use,
for screen readers and the like.

> Another issue that we've seen in some of our usability tests here is
> that people are confused by the file selector in the context of
> attaching a file to a mail they are composing.  
> 
> First they click the 'Attach' button in the composer's toolbar, then
> select a file using the file selector.  Then, they hit the '+' button in
> the file selector to add the attachment to the mail.  Of course, this
> button is for adding bookmarks to the file selector, not for adding
> attachments to mails.
> 
> It would help if the button in the file selector said "Attach" instead
> of "Open," and if the icon were attachment-appropriate.

I actually have a patch for this. I forgot about it, and it is included
in the latest version of the mailer menus redux patch that I just sent
to the list. I'm not sure what the current state of the evolution tree
is for being able to commit things, given the maintainership changes.
If it is open for me to commit though, I am glad to do that. :)

> >   - Use attachment icon list area for display instead of buttons
> 
> This will require that we add a "Save attachment" menu item to the
> right-click menu on the attachment area.

The context-menu for the mail display will have to be entirely different
than it is for the composer attachment area, anyway. We will probably
want to have "Open with..." and other such menu items as well.

-- dobey