Re: Hearts considered?

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

> >> > Have you tried 'Hearts for GNOME'?
> >> > http://www.jejik.com/hearts

> >> On the one hand it is fantastic to know this game exists, hadn't heard of
> >> it before.  On the other hand using radiolists for Yes and No (see
> >> screenshots of the preferences dialog) instead of using checkboxes is
> >> - to
> >> put it politely - not compliant with the Gnome HIG.

> > One of the goals of the project appears to be GNOME HIG compliance, so
> > I am certain patches would be accepted, as would bug reports.

> They would be very welcome, as would some pointers into the HIG about
> this subject. I haven't done a whole lot of reading into the HIG yet.

I could probably contrive a suitable example from the HIG but it tries to
show how best to do things rather than how not to do it.  This is a more
general thing, have you ever seen an application which offered the choices
( ) Yes ( ) No, in a radio list?

You might notice how Gnome tries to use actions/verbs on button labels,
which in many cases can save you from needing to read the dialog at all.
[Cancel] [Discard] [Save]

(Now lets see if I can remember this precisely...) Recently a developer
pointed out how if you label your checkboxes carefully it makes
documentation easier,

[ ] Shoot the messsenger
[ ] Show the status bar
[ ] Hide the contraband

Notice how the labels are positive, the checkboxes are set true
or false as needed.

> Hearts is my first free software project (actually, the first Linux app
> I try my hand of after a few years of Win32 coding) and I haven't been
> able to wrestle myself through all the thousands of pages of
> documentation on various topics scattered around the net :-)

All the important bits should be on developer.gnome.org and parts are
repeated on gtk.org but I have trouble keeping track of it all too.
Reading straight through the documentation end to end isn't fun but if you
do have any doubts about how best to arrange something it can be well
worth dipping into the relevant section of the HIG as needed.  Best to try
and learn a little as you go along, and try to use what you have seen in
other programs you like using as an example.

More fun than any guidelines is the Interface Hall of shame:
http://homepage.mac.com/bradster/iarchitect/shame.htm

> I had hoped to propose this one day when it's close to a 1.0 release or
> thereabouts. At the moment I'm working hard to get the basics done so I

It is good to draw attention to your application before 1.0 as it might
help attract interested developers.  (Good move providing regular
snapshots.)

-- 
Alan