Re: Style Guide suggestion

[Gleef <gleef capital net>]

On Sun, 28 Jun 1998, sun wrote:
> Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> > 
> > Personal selfish problem:
> > 
> > Toolbars with text and pictures really annoy me, I want the option to
> > set them to pictures only (it takes up too much space with the text
> > for my liking, and I can read the tooltips if it;s not obvious what
> > the buttons do). Other people probably like the text only version.
> 
> strongly agreed. there should also be an option for
> pictures-only-with-"tooltips," imo.

With the way GTK is set up, tooltips are handled separately.  An argument
could be made for a "tooltips on"/"tooltips off" selection, but as it
stands now, if there are tooltips, they show up regardless of whether or
not there is text in the button.  If tooltips are not set by the
application, they never show up.


> > (It should probably also be specified where the "Preferences..." menu
> > item goes, but I have no strong opinion on that except that the "File"
> > menu is a bad place).
> 
> this should, of course, be in the "edit" menu. ("edit... preferences"
> makes a complete sentence that gives your computer a clear, definite
> command.)

I strongly disagree.  Take a look at Gnomine, it has two menus, "Game" and
"Help" (at least it did the last time I looked at it).  "Game" is of
course an acceptable renaming of "File" by the style guide.  Under the
"Game" menu, it has a properties item, for setting the preferences we are
discussing.  Would you require such a program to add an "Edit" menu, for
the sole purpose of holding this preferences item.

On the other hand, if you want it under "Edit" only for those programs
where the programmer thinks Edit makes sense, we are going to be hunting
all over the place for the preferences menu item on programs, and this
will make it harder on users, particularly new users and those who have to
support them.

If we put it under "File" always, we can tell exactly where to find it at
all times, on the left-hand menu.  If there is no preferences item there,
we know that there are no user-definable preferneces.  I think that this
will be a far more practical solution.

-Gleef