1998/04/15 GNOME snapshot comments

[Marko Macek <Marko Macek snet fri uni-lj si>]

Hi!

I found some time and tried a snapshot from RH Labs. I am posting my
thoughts here, because most of them are GUI related. Some patches will 
be forthcoming when I find the time. I don't have CVS access at this
time.

--

Notes for April 15 gnome snapshot. This is the first shapshot I tried 
since CVS (lack of time). I used RPM from redhat labs on RH 5.0.

Here are bugs, misc comments, RFEs, ... Mostly first impression stuff.

If you need explanation or more details for these, please mail.

imlib:
	- dithering the images to few available palette colors 
          does not seem to give acceptable results on 8-bit displaya
          (when netscape is running only a few colors are available).
          Matching to nearest allocated colors would work much better. 
          
gtk:
	- gtk uses 'arrow' pointer in the menus. I think it is very ugly,
          is there a way to change it globally to 'right_ptr', 
          or just 'left_ptr' instead.
	- I think gtk is VERY wrong by handling signals (SEGV). What will be
          next? A builtin GPF dialog?
	- Floating windows do not have sizing border, but are still
          resizable by the WM.
	- Why are scrollbars focusable everywhere? This is wrong.

gmc:
	- titlebar doesn't change when navigating
	- is there a way to have sweep select on the left mouse button
          and drag/drop on right mouse button (like OS/2). This is very
          important to me, but should probably be configurable. This
will
	  also need the context menu to popup on button release just
	  like in OS/2 or Windows.
	- using shaped windows for desktop icons is WRONG IMHO. Shaped
	  windows are slow and the icons are sometimes very hard to hit
          with the mouse. There are two alternatives that I can see:
          - drawing directly on root window.
	  - using an ordinary maximized window and forcing it to stay
	    on the bottom.
	- context menu should have Open/Properties,... in the submenu, those
          options should be in the first level of the menu.
	- I think RDF (http://www.mozilla.org/) should be seriously looked
	  into.

panel:
	- could not run it. Gets stuck in very slow loop reporting errors
          about menu already attached.
	- 'arrow' pointer is ugly. Use left_ptr/right_ptr instead like
	  Motif does.

gemvt: 
	- does not set sizing hints correctly (resize_inc, ...)
	- should probably lose the status line
	- should probably use xterm selection mode instead of rxvt.
	- please support xterm WINDOWID
	- no jump scroll yet?

gnome-help-browser: 
	- default colors are unreadable for links.
	- 3D links are ugly IMHO
	- History/Bookmarks can not be shown again after closed.
	- If I press Help button, Back does not work.
	- context menu is missing
	- help is slow to start (2-3 seconds on my system, P166/64MB)

gnomine:
	- Help menu is not in a consistent position. I have found
	  that a lot of people (newbies) simply do not see the Help
	  menu if it is on the right side of screen when frame is maximized.
 	  So I think the Help menu should be left aligned.
	- Does not set MWM hints yet.

mahjongg:
	- same thing with the help menu as gnomine
	- The dialog shown on a mismtched tile is VERY annoying.
	  Make it beep instead.

same-gnome:
	- same thing with the help menu as gnomine

sol:
	- slow to startup, uses lots of memory
	- get rid of File menu, use Game, Move (for hint, undo) and Help
instead

find-file:
	- there should be a standardized pixmap on the right side of buttons
	  for showing additional parts of the dialog. (triangle pointing down)
	- there should be a start directory selector
	- the default directory should be expanded, not just '.'

gcalc:
	- did not show any numbers ;-)
	- Help menu should be on the left
	- Ctl-X -> Ctrl+Q for exit.
	- Why use Ctl instead of Ctrl which is much more common

genius:
	- Help menu should be on the left
	- Ctl-X -> Ctrl+Q for exit.

ghex:
	- Help menu should be on the left
	- Ctrl+W is missing for close.	
	- Ctrl+G is usually used for find-next, maybe something else
	  for Goto Byte (^L or ^J seems good -- need style guide).

gnomecal:
	- it didn't work for me, but I hope it it stands for calendar, not calc

gtop:
	- invalid quit accelecator (use Ctrl+Q instead of q)
	- View menu should have radio buttons

gtt:
	- Help menu should be on the left
	- difference between Edit|Properties and Edit|Preferences is
	  not obvious. Preferences should probably be in the file menu.
	- if I click (press+release) with right button on the project,
	  it displays the menu and then properties immediatelly. This 
	  is wrong, it should display only the menu.

logview:
	- did not start

gulp:
	- Help not on the left side
	- No Ctrl+Q binding

ee:
	- Edit window can't be closed using the WM.
	- Is there a way to have scrollbars instead of sizing the image when
	  window is resized.

*-properties:
	- Not resizable? When did I reboot into windows? 
	- OK vs Apply vs Cancel? Using modeless configuration dialogs
	  would be much better (OK Undo Close Defaults).
	- Why is Help the default button?

network-utilities:
	- segfaults
--

Regards,
Mark
-- 
... MouseDevice "/dev/null"
--------_--------------------------------------------------------------
Marko.Macek@snet.fri.uni-lj.si      http://ixtas.fri.uni-lj.si/~markom/