Re: [Usability] A bunch of UI issues

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

Owen Taylor wrote:

>  58389 'Active area' for GtkRange
> 
>   Implementation of cancellation by moving away from the scrollbar
>   a sufficient distance.

I'd like to add my opposition to this one as well, at least unless
somebody can explain why it would be more useful than annoying...

>  59707 Need keynav for selectable labels.
> 
>   Question here is how to handle focusing a selectable label;
>   the code to implement keynav is there? Should they be in
>   the tab chain?

For what it's worth, I don't think they should be in the standard tab
chain, but I don't really have any great alternatives.  

One not-so-great alternative might be to only allow keyboard selection
of labels that have an access key, and have a 'special' access key
mechanism for focusing them, e.g. Ctlr+Alt+mnemonic rather than the
usual Alt+menmonic (which would normally focus the control the label
referred to, if it had one).  Once such a label had focus, pressing
Tab/Shift+Tab would just move focus to the next/previous control as
usual.

Unfortunately, the most useful labels to select are usually messages in
alert boxes and suchlike, which would probably look odd with an
underlined letter in them  :/

Plan B might be to have Tab cycle through everything in a dialog except
selectable labels (as it does right now), and Ctrl+Alt+Tab (or
something, but there aren't many unused combinations that include Tab)
cycle through everything in a dialog *including* selectable labels.

>  67649 Patch for UI issues with range widgets
> 
>   Main controversial request is to change things so right click
>   reverses the direction of action for all mouse bindings.
>   I don't think this is a good idea, but maybe a reverse direction
>   modifier could be snuck in?

The modifier idea just sounds less confusing to me here, and would
probably be a more accessible solution.  Shift would get my vote since
it's generally used to 'reverse' or 'undo' things in accelerator
combinations (e.g. Ctrl+Z = Undo, Shift+Ctrl+Z = Redo).

>  69569 OK/Cancel stock items shouldn't have menmonics?

My comments on this one already in the bug report  :o)

Cheeri,
Calum.

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

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems