Re: [Evolution] UI choices

[Jeffrey Stedfast <fejj ximian com>]

the point is that having the feature would be confusing to users and is
an unnecessary feature to begin with.

not everything has to become a configuration preference. if it were this
way, you'd never be able to find anything in the preferences dialog(s).

it's unfortunate that a lot of people do not recognise this fact.

there is a huge discussion about this on the GNOME Usability list. I
think Havoc Pennington wrote up a document on it, I would refer you to
it but don't recall the url.

Jeff

On Mon, 2003-02-10 at 18:46, Andrew Cowie wrote:
> On Tue, 2003-02-11 at 05:24, Jeffrey Stedfast wrote:
> > it only ever makes sense to put the cursor at the bottom if you wanted
> > to FORCE people into replying YOUR way (which not everyone agrees with)
> > and if the only type of reply anyone EVER wanted to do was a summary
> > reply to the whole message (which is clearly not the case).
>
> Uh guys, rather than arguing about the correct way to do it, why not
> follow your thought to its logical conclusion?
>
> SOME people want it one way. SOME OTHER people want it a different way.
> So add the power to the interface to choose between them. 
>
> Flexibility is, after all, the hall mark of the Open world, and opposed
> to the "though shalt only do it this proscribed way" which is what
> pisses so many of us off about Outlook and friends. Outlook is great
> software, but you can't *control* it! Please don't make Evolution like
> that.
>
> I realize one doesn't just magically whip up a piece of UI. I also
> realize that any feature wouldn't be implemented for a long time (I know
> how release cycles work). But it WAS a valid feature request (even if
> the poster cited a bogus RFC claiming it's necessity). Someone wants it,
> there are two valid behaviours, and no good reason to choose between
> them.
>
> Don't want to confuse novice users with additional configuration
> options? [Yes, I know GNOME is trying VERY hard to make things simple]
> Then pick an intelligent default but create an "advanced" mode or some
> such where such options can be tweaked?
>
> The power under the hood is what brought so many of us to Unix; if we
> can't control it, make it do what we want, then what's the point? We all
> just accept that such control is not offered in the Windows world; but
> to most users who have been around a while, the power of Unix is in it's
> ability to be configured to our tastes. Open Source gives us the ability
> to work with the code, yes, but we all know that hacking a particular
> project is beyond most people [Evolution is, after all, the hardest
> thing EVER to build :)]
>
> Unix is about letting people make choices. I should like to encourage
> the Evolution developers to give choices to their users whenever
> possible.
>
> Not a rant, just a feature request ;)
>
>       Andrew
-- 
Jeffrey Stedfast
Evolution Hacker - Ximian, Inc.
fejj ximian com  - www.ximian.com