Re: Message Boxes / 5:3 Ratio

[Liam Quin <liam holoweb net>]

Karl, thanks for the clarifications.

I think that a gnome style guide is needed, and that this would
be am item in it.

Other items might include

* when should a gnome app have toolbars and when should it have menus,
  and when both?

* if there are toolbars, what items (if any) must always be present?
  what order should the items be in?
  should icons be standard, or is it better for each application to
  choose its own?

* if there are menus, what menus (if any) should always be present,
  and what order should they be in?

  Which items must appear on certain menus, and which?

  Must there be a menu item for every toolbar item?

* when you create a new document (if applicable),
  should a new window appear, or should the current window be replaced?
  If the latter, what warning should be given if tehre was an unsaved
  document?

* In general what warning should be given on a Quit if there are unsaved
  documents?

* What size should a new main window be?

* should an editor come up with
  . a blank screen
  . an empty document
  . a message saying what to do next?

* Should preferences be a tabbed notebook or a menu with multiple
  sub-items? (both are popular with gnome apps right now)

  How should the user save preferences settings?

  How should the user revert preferences settings  to factory defaults?
 
  How should the user revert preferences settings to the last saved,
  or to the values that were in use before the settings dialogue box
  was shown? (this is a standard feature in some popular  systems)

* What standard keyboard equivalents should exist for File->New, Quit, Help,
  and other items?

* What action should be taken when a file is dropped on a document (if
  appropriate)?  Embed the document, embed the filename, embed a reference
  to the file, include the contents of the file, include the filename,
  open the file, delete the file?

* If the answer is, include the file, how does the user drag a file to
  open it in a new window?

* How does a user drag a document out of a window? Select-all will let the
  user drag teh contents, but that's not the same

* What standard warning should be given before overwriting a file?

* should messages be worded in passive or active voice?

* when editing a document, where should the document name be put? What
  about the directory containing the name? What about the modified/unchanged
  status indicator?

I could go on for pages :-)

And yes, some user interface style guidelines specify all of these things
and more; these were a fwe off the top of my head.

Lee

-- 
Liam Quin - Barefoot in Toronto - liam holoweb net - http://www.holoweb.net/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net www.valinor.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org www.advogato.org
author, The Open Source XML Database Toolkit, Wiley, August 2000
Co-author, The XML Specification Guide, Wiley, 1999