Re: Record Button?

["Dan Kaminsky" <effugas best com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Vogt <tom@lemuria.org>
To: gnome-gui-list@gnome.org <gnome-gui-list@gnome.org>
Date: Saturday, August 01, 1998 12:59 PM
Subject: Re: Record Button?


>Dan Kaminsky <effugas@best.com> wrote:
>> Should every window have a record button, right up there next to minimize
>> and maximize?
>
>NO !
>
>one important rule of ui design is to NOT put rarely needed things anywhere
>up front. put a record option in some menu, but don't create a new
top-level
>button for something that'll be used once a year.


Macros are something average users really *should* use more.  You're the
person who has been beating us over the head with the fact(and I admit it's
a fact; it totally changed my position on one point) that if you don't club
a point into a user, they just don't get it.

Macros are rarely used right now, just like reconfiguring the start menu is
rarely done--they are both difficult, but both are a short-term cost for a
long term increase in usability.

I'm beginning to see the value, however, in just leaving it in something
like the gnomeprint menu you also don't like :-)

>I read that reply from the xlab guy. did you notice that what he said about
>contextes?
>see, xlab replays, it's not smart. a macro might (and WILL) break just
>because you have the window at a different size than the one who recorded
>it.


That's how it works *now*.  You don't think this is changable?  Remember,
we're the blue sky people.

>
>> VCR's have record buttons, so that's a Real World(what's that?) link.
>
>tv's have a fixed screen size. (at least within the major systems, I'm not
>sure if pal and ntsc use the same pixels.)
>in addition, tv's have only one "user context" and no interaction.


For screenplays, context is fixed--the window is ALWAYS the correct size
because it's generated by the playback.