[HIG] Update, resolution of initial policy questions



HIG folks --

I see some progress in CVS, and will work myself on a few things this afternoon -- a usability principles section, for instance. But there are still some sections that need serious work; Colin, are you working on the menus/dialogs sections? If not, would you mind if someone else took those over for now?

Otherwise, if you're rewriting a section, please email me to let me know that you're done with the changes on the must-fix and comments lists; hopefully we'll be able to get to another review stage soon.

Here are some results on the policy questions I sent out. I counted votes from Greg, Maciej, Matthew, and Kathy; if you disagree strongly, a) shame on you for not voting, and b) let me know. :)

1. Menu item names: "Quit <appname>", "Close <appname>", or just "Quit" / "Close"?

All four of the above-named people vote to remove "<appname>". I agree with Maciej that the question of whether to remove Quit is a separate one, and one which I don't want us to address for GNOME 2.0.

Resolution: The menu items should be "Quit" and "Close", no appname or docname.

2. "Select None", "Deselect All", or nothing?

Greg, Maciej, and Matthew vote to remove this. Kathy votes for "Deselect all" (as in "deselect all the stuff that is currently selected").

Resolution: Remove it from the standard Edit menu.

I agree with Calum's justifications that this is important for graphics apps and certain other kinds of apps; however, I think we can safely leave it out of the "standard" Edit menu for now. We should review this again for the next HIG revision.

3. "Edit->Preferences" ok as an alternative to "Options" menu?

All four say OK to this (although Greg reserves judgement on the item's name).

Resolution: Remove recommendation for the "Options" menu, recommend an "Edit -> Preferences..." item.

4. Letter or Fkey shortcut keys?

All four say letter, although Greg and Matthew note that F1 and F10 are special cases.

Resolution: We should recommend letter shortcuts and recommend against Fkey shortcuts in general, with specific exceptions for F1 and F10 (what are their standard meanings again?)

5. Mnemonics for "OK" and "Cancel" in a dialog box, or just enter and escape?

All four say Enter and Escape. No letter-key access keys for these buttons. Greg has a long proposal for how to handle Enter, Escape, and Tab in various kinds of fields; however, I think there is potential for confusion there.

Resolution: there should be no letter-key access keys for OK and Cancel; Enter and Escape should generally activate them, with the exception of Enter when the focus is in a multi-line text field. Ctrl-Enter should always activate OK.

6. Drag-drop with right mouse button: show a menu?

All four say that this behavior should not be recommended. Maciej recommends considering remapping it to the middle mouse button.

Resolution: We should not recommend this behavior. Let's consider the middle button issue in the future.

7. Include a shortcut key for Quit? (Kathy recommends against).

Greg and mpt vote against having Quit, and do not make a vote on this issue. Kathy votes against, Maciej votes for. I will break the tie by voting for.

Resolution: Let's leave it in for now. As Maciej notes, apps which might have data loss on quit should show confirmation dialogs.

8. General keyboard shortcut issues: see notes in keynav section.

OK, this was bad; I was lazy here and didn't really list the actual issues, so the votes are pretty scattered. Fortunately, it looks like Calum is taking the comments into account in his rewrite of this section.

Anyway, that's all for that. Again, let me know ASAP if you have any further comments on these issues; otherwise these decisions stand unless Seth strikes them down with his magic GUP Project Lead veto stick.

Adam
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