Re: [Usability] Re: [Fwd: Re: Your final comments on gswitchit in2.4...]

[Reinout van Schouwen <reinout cs vu nl>]

Hi Sergey,

On Wed, 25 Jun 2003, Sergey V. Oudaltsov wrote:

> > You are using a tab page while you only have one tab. The 'General' tab
> > just needs to disappear I think.
> Well, I will try to hide this somehow. The problem is that this
> "General"'s "tabbing nature":) should appear once user hit "Advanced"
> toggle button - because 2 new tabs will appear as well.

Aha, now I understand. Well, a button in a notebook page for
showing/hiding other notebook pages is pretty unusual. I don't know if the
HIG says anything about this but it definately breaks the real-world
notebook metaphor!

Anyway, being blissfully unaware of the content of your Advanced pages,
it seems more logical to me to just show all tabs and give them meaningful
names. Then if there are options you'd really want to hide from non-power
users you could use an expander button.

> > For 'Custom' and 'Global configured', radio buttons are probably more in
> > order.
> Well, in HIG they say (at least they said) that radio buttons should not
> affect the behavior of other widgets (these 2 widgets effectively
> enable/disable nearly all other widgets) - otherwise developers should
> use toggle.

I can't seem to find back the part that says 'otherwise use toggle', but
that may be just me.

The crux of the matter here is that changing the state of a control on one
page should not influence the state of controls on other pages because the
user is unlikely to notice the connection. Using toggle buttons instead of
radio buttons doesn't alleviate this problem.

> I already told - they were radio buttons till I read HIG. If
> everyone here thinks radios would be better here - I will change it
> back.

Well I've told my opinion, what do other people think?

> > IIRC an "expander" button was recommended for disclosing advanced
> > options?
> Sorry, I dont not get it. Well, I will have a look at HIG again.

I don't know if this is covered in the HIG. Calum? :-)

regards,

-- 
Reinout van Schouwen			Artificial Intelligence student
email: reinout@cs.vu.nl			mobile phone: +31-6-44360778

Softwarepatenten bedreigen Europa. Teken op petition.eurolinux.org!