Re: Style Guide suggestion

[Maciej Stachowiak <mstachow mit edu>]

First, let me say that I am glad my proposal has gotten a lot of
attention, largely positive. Many people have proposed variations and
extensions of all sorts. 

I would like to suggest that we proceed stepwise on this issue; it
could end up serving as a good prototype for other similar app-wide
and potentially system-wide preferences (turning menu pixmaps off and
turning the detachable menus/toolbars off are two I've heard
cited). If we handle this one right, we will probably have an easier
time adding the others in a coherent way.


gleef@capital.net writes:
> 
> 
> 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.
> 
> 

There should be a "tooltips on" checkbutton in the preferences dialog
as well (I reccomend checking out the way Netscape 4.0 lays out the
toolbar preferences, I can put a window capture up on the web if
anyone lacks easy access to Netscape). This should be a separate style
guide item. I noticed, however, that many Gnome apps with toolbars
currently have no tooltips at all. This is bad and should also be
fixed. In fact, we should probably standardize the tooltips for some
common toolbar buttons.


> > > (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.
> 

Personally, I must say that I prefer "Edit". Actually, I don't think
it is entirely unfair to require an "Edit" menu by implication for any
app complex enough to have a toobar, even if the only thing it
contains is "Preferences...". But this is a separate style guide issue.

Trying to capture the rough consensus I have seen here, I suggest we
add these style guide entries for now:

* Every Gnome app that has a toolbar should provide a
Preferences... menu entry that calls up a dialog that has a set of
radio buttons to select one of: "Pictures and Text", "Pictures only"
or "Text only" (style guide maintainer: feel free to
s/Pictures/Images/g if you think that's more intuitive).

* Every Gnome app that has a toolbar should provide tooltips for each
toolbar button, and for other controls on the toolbar if appropriate. 

* Every Gnome app that has a toolbar should allow you to turn the
tooltips on and off through the Preferences dialog with a checkbutton
labelled "Tooltips on".


Once we get that going, we can add a way to set these preferences
Gnome-wide, and gradually add the other optional GUI settings that are
largely matters of taste.

As for where to put the "Preferences..." menu item, I'd guess
discussion on that is not yet closed. Let's just that until someone
feels like making a final decision.

 - Maciej Stachowiak