Re: [Muine] A few suggestions

[Jorn Baayen <jbaayen gnome org>]

On K, 2005-02-23 at 01:12 +0100, Lars Weber wrote:
> Hi again,
> 
> and sorry for the delay...
> 
> Am Freitag, den 18.02.2005, 22:33 +0200 schrieb Jorn Baayen:
> > While it's not common for users to hit play twice I think it's quite
> > > common for them to want to start playing something and to then to select
> > > other items to play later (using "Queue").
> > 
> > The main reason why the behaviour is as it is, is because many people
> > (including myself) often just want to play something, hit 's', type a
> > part of the name of the song and hit return. But then again, one could
> > argue the same thing for queueing, so I guess I'll give in and change
> > the behaviour.
> 
> Perhaps there could be shortcuts for select-and-close-window like in
> Nautilus (e.g. middle-click or shift-<Enter>).

That's an interesting idea. However, what I dislike about it is that it
is not at all visible. And I think we should have such a major use case
as "just playing something" working out of the box without needing to
know any tricks.

> [...]
> > > > One tiny improvement - I guess - would be moving the "By artist" thing
> > > > to be under the list, so that things would line up a bit better.
> > > 
> > > I personally don't see a problem with the current alignment.  Given that
> > > the browser-selection and the button row are two separate entities I'd
> > > even say that aligning both of them would be misleading and therefore
> > > counter-productive.
> > 
> > The thing is that right now it is not very clear that the left list will
> > filter the right list. They look like two very separate things. I think
> > it might be a bit more clear if they begin at least at the same hight
> > vertically. 
> 
> Ah ok, this is what you mean.  I still think that the placement in my
> mockups is better because
> 
>   a) *both* the drop-down and the list on the left filter the list on
> the right, and
> 
>   b) placing the drop-down before the (left-hand) list makes more sense
> since it is used logically before it (i.e.: first you select the type of
> selection, then you select items from the list).

Agreed. But I still can't help that the dialog doesn't trigger any kind
of intuitive knowledge of "left list filters right list" in me. This is
different in Epiphany for example. I couldn't say why .. 

Of course, with some orientation most if not all users will figure out
what the left list does. However, it would be so much nicer if (most)
things would be instantly clear.. and my impression is that with the
current UI they more or less are.

> > > > Some brainstorming for alternatives:
> > > > - Using a combo box instead of the list. Or a combo box-like thing,
> > > > popping down a scrollable list.
> > > 
> > > I wouldn't like this because it would make the browser much more
> > > cumbersome to use.
> > 
> > True. Maybe we should work with an expander widget right under the
> > search entry? On expand it would show a combo showing what to list, and
> > a list of artists/genres/whatever. Of course we would remember the
> > state, whether the dialog is expanded or not.
> 
> You mean like a show-/hide-toggle for the browser?  If so it might be
> worth a try even though it has the negative side-effect of making the
> dialog as a whole more complex (at least in the expanded state).

Right. A bit more elegant might be something like this: A "details" or
"refine" togglebutton right of the search entry. When toggled the left
list would be shown, otherwise not.

Jorn