Re: GnomeURIEntry

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

On Wed, 2002-09-25 at 13:21, Bill Haneman wrote:
> On Wed, 2002-09-25 at 12:59, Ricardo Fernández Pascual wrote:
> 
> Basically, use of TAB in any combination for completion will conflict
> with the use of TAB elsewhere.  That wasn't a problem for bash of
> course, since bash predates the use of GUIs, etc.
> 
> "Enter" is probably confusing also.  CSH uses "Esc" but that also seems
> at odds with other uses of Esc on the GNOME desktop.  
> 
> Calum, what do you suggest?

For URIs, my personal preference is for something like the filename
completion in the OpenOffice file dialog or the Nautilus location bar--
i.e. you don't have to press any key at all to initiate the completion,
suggestions are made automatically as you type.  If there are multiple
matches at any one time, they could appear in a dropdown list, or you
could just not display any matches until you're down to the only
possible match (but that's not really as helpful).  When the correct
match has been predicted, you hit enter to accept it, or right-arrow to
move the cursor to the end of the field to continue typing.  Tab doesn't
come into it :)

Having said that, here's what Microsoft found when they did a usability
study of the address completion they use in IE.  IE4 used the model I
just described, but as a result of testing they tweaked it in IE5 so
that matches are displayed in the dropdown list as you type, but matches
never actually appear in the text field unless you explicitly select
one.  Scott Berkun explains all here:

http://www.listserv.acm.org/archives/wa.cgi?A2=ind0011B&L=chi-web&P=R8687

Cheeri,
Calum.
 
-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson sun com            GNOME Desktop Group
http://ie.sun.com                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems

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