RE: GtkTreeView column-chooser dialog

[martyn 2 russell bt com]

> > Nah, way too clunky.  It might be accessible, but it's annoying and
> > difficult to use.  Drag and drop is much more intuitive; it "just
> > works".
> 
> I'm suggesting the menu in addition to DND so it's accessible.
> i.e. menu instead of dialog, should have DND either way.  Not
> intending to contrast menu with DND.
>  

I actually quite like this way of doing it. Although DnD is very quick and
easy, and a menu is another good way of modifying the column sewtup, what
needs not to be forgotten is how you do this WITHOUT a mouse.

Also, I always have the view that DnD should be a flashy 2nd most important
way of doing something because it is the least obvious way of doing it.  If
you take windows as an example, file operations like copy, move, etc can all
be done several ways, the most common is probably right clicking and
selecting an option from the menu that pops up.  Another common option is to
use a menu, and for those MORE key'd up on the ways of Windows will use Dnd.

> It's easier to find standard Shift+F10 to open a context menu than to
> learn a custom key shortcut for "begin move" perhaps. Unless we used
> the same shortcut used elsewhere, e.g. whatever we have for initiating
> move on an applet or paned or handlebox or something. I think applet
> begin move is in the menu, paned is just "focus handle then space,"
> not sure about handlebox.
> 

Again, emphasising my point.

> > > On Thu, 2003-03-06 at 17:56, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> > > > I find it mildly confusing that I have to move the columns up and
down
> > > > in the dialog, while I really want to move them left and right in
the
> > > > list...
> > 
> > Perhaps we can label it 'Swap Next' and 'Swap Previous'?
> 
> Or Move Before and Move After. Another mild irritation comes from the
> fact that I have to sort the visible and invisible columns in a single
> list, but any alternative two-list design would probably be much more
> complicated and space consuming - e.g. the galeon1.2 toolbar
> customization. But this brings up another point: this dialog is
> conceptually very similar to a toolbar customization dialog; both let
> the user select a subset of items from a list of available items and
> order the selected items. Can we make this column chooser dialog
> abstract enough to allow it to be used for toolbars as well ?

I had a quick look at Galeons preferences, user interface, toolbar settings,
and I also quite like the way you have two lists which can have items move
between and up/down for the order in which they are shown.

The most important thing about this interface is that it has to be simple
and straight forward enought for people to comprehend and be able to use.  

Regards,
Martyn