GNOME Compliance Labels

[Gleef <gleef capital net>]

On Sun, 9 Aug 1998, Tom Vogt wrote:
> Gleef <gleef@capital.net> wrote:
> > C1 level would be primarily things like bad behavior, it should be easy
> > for a program to meet GNOME-friendly levels.  The GNOME-friendly label
> > would tell the user that the program will not break their GNOME system.  A
> > very stylized system like Kai would be able to conform to the 
> > GNOME-friendly specification rather easily.  
> 
> I'm not sure I get the idea here. any program that breaks anything,
> especially unrelated applications, is very buggy anyways.

True.


> or do you propose having a purely technical session, saying that no matter
> what it looks like, if it supports session management, dnd and other things
> like that, it's "GNOME friendly" ?

I would think there would be a few more requirements than that, but yes,
that's the basic idea.  That GNOME-Friendly applications would interact
with GNOME in a certain minimum way, but they wouldn't necessary look
like a GNOME app.  These applicaitons would be required to meet all C1
requirements.  I feel that this would encourage developers of non-GNOME
apps to work towards compliance without feeling they have to mangle their
whole design.  I also see no reason why some of the more esoteric
applications, like Kai's and the MP3 players can't meet the GNOME-friendly
requirements.

GNOME-Compliant applications would look and act like GNOME applications.
These would meet all C1 and C2 requirements.  This will give a descriptive
label and a level to the real GNOME applications.  This will let the end
user know that they will have the GNOME user interface, and they program
will behave the same way they've learned to use other GNOME applications.

I would also have a third label.  GNOME-Standard applications would be
GNOME apps that can be used as a reference for the interface.  These are
prime examples of how a GNOME application should be written.  These
applications would have to meet all C1, C2 and C3 requirements.

There would be no label for C4 and C5, since these are optional.  A
program would have to be pretty wierd to use all C4 items, and insane to
use all C5's.


> > Since the button to close the window should be the rightmost button, I
> > would say the button should be at the bottom right.
> > 
> > The current RSG has it as "expanded to fill the whole width of the
> > window".  I think that oversized buttons like this look cartoony and
> > unprofessional.
> 
> not sure. look at gimp, they use it that way all over the place and it looks
> quite good. that is always on the assumption that the window isn't 623
> pixels wide, but I as we are speaking of simple dialogs with only one
> button, I think those of that size are quite rare.

I've looked at Gimp.  That's one of the things that I'm not fond of in
Gimp.  Having a 623 pixel wide dialog would be rare, but a 400 pixel wide
would be more common.  For example, an informational dialog showing the
output of a program might be expanded to 400 pixels wide or even more by a
user trying to get a good look at the text.

Do you really want one button to be 400 pixels wide with just one word in
the middle?  Also, with virtual desktops, if the dialog is off to screen
right, with just the left 50 pixels showing, you might find yourself
accidentally clicking a button you couldn't even tell was a button.

IMHO, proper use of whitespace improves the professional appearance of a
program.  Motif programs often have too little.  GTK+ programs often have
too much.  GNOME should encourage a good balance of whitespace and text.

-Gleef