Re: GtkComboBox design issues

[Kristian Rietveld <kristian planet nl>]

Hi!

Thanks for all comments, I'll tell here what I think is the best option
after reading all your comments.

> 
> 1. The GtkComboBoxText now uses the 'standard' GtkTreeModel. I think this
> isn't the right one, and it should use ListStore or the new TreeModelSort
> instead. But which one? Do we want sorting or not?
>

I think most people will like the non sorting ListStore.

> 2. Owen told about the issue of duplicates in his mail of Oct 26. I think
> this problem only applies to the GtkComboBoxText. Having the same
> GtkWidget on the grid of the GtkComboBoxGrid twice isn't possible. But the
> question is: Do we want duplicates or not? Do we want an option to switch
> the allowance of duplicates on/off?

Most people don't like the idea of having duplicates. So I think it's the
best if the ComboBoxText won't allow any duplicates.

> 
> 3. Which kind of {tab,auto}completion do we want in the
> GtkComboBoxText? It now has tabcompletion when typing and it'll try to
> autocomplete if the user presses enter.
>

This was definitely the most confusing issue, most people pointed at the
'mozilla-style' completion. I looked to mozilla (the last mozilla I
downloaded was M17, my phone connection isn't that fast, so I only
download mozilla once in 4 months or so :), and found the following style
of completion:

The user types, if the ComboBoxText finds a possible completion, it'll
highlight it after the user-typed text (after a delay, we may make this
delay configurable?). When the user doesn't want that completion he will
continue typing, and the completion will disappear. When the user presses
enter, the ComboBoxText will use the given completion.

I also like this way of autocompletion, and I think this is a nice way of
doing it. I hadn't thought about the tab key which will block the widget
navigation, so we should definitely get rid of the tab key.


Another problem was the issue of the editable and non-editable combo
boxes. Owen also pointed at this problem in his mail of Oct 26. If we
also create a ReadOnly combobox, it will 'conflict' with the OptionMenu. I
think the ReadOnly combobox is 'windows-style' and the OptionMenu is
'unix-style' of picking an option out of a menu. Because the main platform
of GTK+ is still unix, I think it's the best that we keep using the
OptionMenu...

Again, thanks for all your comments!

	Kris

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