Re: Dropping the "Interface" tab from appearance capplet

[Frederic Crozat <fcrozat mandriva com>]

Le mardi 28 juillet 2009 à 16:40 +0100, Thomas Wood a écrit :
> Hi,
> 
> It has been suggested that we remove the interface tab from the
> Appearance capplet. This is for a number of reasons:
> 
> 1) The tab mostly exposes bad design decisions
> 
> 2) The tab page is fairly sparse and only contains three preferences

But relying on gconf-editor for those configuration options is clearly a
UI regression.

> However, before we remove the tab, I suggest we fix the default option
> for the toolbar styles. I would like to see the default setting being
> "Text beside icons". My reasoning is:
> 
> 1) This reduces the amount of vertical space uses in toolbars, allowing
> more room for actual content

And it will eat a LOT of horizontal space instead : applications are
often not confortable with 1024 width, it will be even worse.

> 2) Important buttons are given a larger size than other buttons, meaning
> better fitts-law for these buttons.

Longer text doesn't mean more important text (or I'm missing something).
And it doesn't always work in non-english languages.

> 3) This seems to be a good compromise between "icons only" and "icons
> and text"

I beg to differ on this.

Icon only is clearly not an option by default, since it is mostly for
"expert" or "powerusers". So, the only "by default" options are "icons
and text" and "text beside icons"

> 4) It seems to be more similar to other environments

A quick check on MacOS X seems to vote in favor of "text below icons"

> A quick survey in the office seems to suggest the "text beside icons" is
> the most popular choice for default.

I guess your survey was done on english systems, not on various
localized systems.

-- 
Frederic Crozat <fcrozat mandriva com>
Mandriva