Re: gtk-devel-list Digest, Vol 52, Issue 27

["Henrique Carvalho Alves" <hcarvalhoalves gmail com>]

> Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2008 09:55:37 +0200
> From: Thorsten Wilms <t_w_ freenet de>
> Subject: Re: Gtk+ Font dialog proposal
>
> It's very unfortunate that you can't filter for serif/sans and so on.
> The Monospaced only checkbox means there's no variable-width only. I
> think a "Show:" with a Fixed-width and a Variable-width checkbox would
> be better.

You're right, the terms Fixed-width and Variable-width are better.

> Moving the size entry to below the list seems like a good idea for the
> reason you give: the pre-defined sizes are likely more often used.

Yep. Also, makes for a better click-target, being larger and keeping
the lists top aligned.

> Preview area on the top seems backwards to me. It's not the sovereign
> but the subject!

It's the only place were I could place a vertical sliding pane without
breaking the rest of dialog - collapsing the pane to the top is
natural, instead of collapsing it to the bottom, were it will be
*between* the lists and dialog buttons, very awkward drag and slide.

> Using the font name and properties as preview text is
> worse than using abcde... . Something along the lines of lorem ipsum or
> the quick brown fox with numbers and special characters would be better.

The problem here is that "Quick brown fox..." doesn't make sense in
any language. "Lorem ipsum..." also doesn't make sense for someone who
doesn't know it's a dummy text. A common user would just popup the
dialog and say "What means that? I can't read
<english/latim/whatever>!". Some users might even get offended.

So I tough using the font name and size is random enough to provide a
preview with glyphs, spacing and numerals; is a short text; makes
sense inside the context; makes sense for international users; is
visually informative, as displays meta-information (the font you
selected in the font itself). Do you know any case were displaying
with the font name would be a problem?

> Having the text editable and allowing to switch between alternatives wouldn't hurt.

Yes, making editable is better - I just didn't found a consistent way
to use a text entry that behaves like the label.

> You might find http://eyegene.ophthy.med.umich.edu/unicode/fontdialog/
> interesting.

I already saw that ;)

Thanks for the reply!