Re: Flipping for scrolled windows

[Tzafrir Cohen <tzafrir technion ac il>]

Hi

On Mon, 24 Sep 2001, Pablo Saratxaga wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 25, 2001 at 12:47:51AM +0800, Steve Underwood wrote:
>
> > > Another patch I've had sitting around for a while. This adds
> > > directional flipping to GtkScrolledWindow, so the scrollbars
> > > appear on the opposite side for RTL languages.
>
> > Those who loved NextStep know the only sane place for the scroll bar is
> > on the left - or at the bottom for vertical CJK :)

What is the reason for the scroll-bar to be on the left?

> The place of the scrollbar must follow the general directionality layout
> of all the other widgets.
> If checkboxes follow directionality, if input bowes with a label follow
> directionality, if pop down menus follow directionality, if position of
> boutons ("ok", "cancel" etc) follow directionality, if placement of
> menus in menu bar and placement of butons in title bar follow directionality,
> then the scroll bar must follow directionality too.
> Otherwise it is an obvious ergonomic bug.

I'm not sure that flippping everything is a good idea.

This thing is that the user may be exposed to both flipped and unflipped
windows, and this means that the user iinterface is inconsistent.

Windows98 was the first version of windows to be released in which the
Hebrew support included a flipping of the user interface. Many people
(including me) avoided installing the "localized" version (and installed
the "enabled" version,m which has the original user interface) because the
user interface was unfamiliar:

When I wanted to close a window, I was used to clicking the button in the
top-left corner, not necesarily the button above the top of the first menu
item.

Considering the user's habits, the geometry should change as least as
possible, unless there is a good reason. In the case of everything that
involves text, there is a good reason for flipping. But I don't think that
this applies to scroll-bars and title-bar buttons.

>
> Allthe above already do follow the directionality in gtk2 (well, not sure
> about the title bar as it depends of the WM; but it shouldn't be too hard
> to fix if it hasn't been done yet); so the scrollbar must do too.
>
> PS: note that it is possible (or should be possible) to override the
> default and global direction if the user wants otherwise; but what is sure
> is that all widgets should follow the same rule, and not a strange mix
> of the two.

I agree.

> So the patch Owen talks about must be applied imho.

-- 
Tzafrir Cohen
mailto:tzafrir technion ac il
http://www.technion.ac.il/~tzafrir