Re: gui design of nm-applet

[van Schelve <public van-schelve de>]

On Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:55:35 -0800, Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com> wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-03-08 at 13:24 +0100, van Schelve wrote:
>> We are planning to rollout NM > 0.8 to a very! big number of mobile
Linux
>> systems. Our different usecases for NM are Ethernet, 3G datacards,
>> bluetooth based 3g and in small numbers wlan as well.
>> 
>> Today we had a discussion about nm-applet in our companay. We are
worried
>> about our user get overcharge with the usability of nm-applet. The
>> biggest
>> painpoint we talked about in this context is way nm presents the
>> available
>> devices, available connections and the active connections.
>> 
>> The horizontal separator should be removed from nm-applet. It looks
like
>> a
>> logical separator between different connection types.
> 
> Hmm, the indentation was supposed to help make that clearer.  The
> problem is that we do need a mechanism to distinguish between the
> "current" network connection for that device and it's associated actions
> (like disconnect) and the other available connections.  Unfortunately
> we're currently stuck in a GtkMenu widget where we can't control the
> layout in a fine-grained manner without violating a lot of UI principles
> (since it is still a menu).
> 
>> Maybe it could be a way using differnt font size / weight? Or maybe
>> indenting blockwise?
> 
> It might work to make the "available" text in the line smaller perhaps
> to differentiate it more from the surrounding text?
> 

What do you think about presenting the list in this way:

-------------------------------------
Wired Network
  [ ] Auto eth0 (100Mit FD)
-------------------------------------
Mobile Broadband
  [x] MyCompany
-------------------------------------
Nokia 6680 (Bluetooth)
  [ ] MyCompany
-------------------------------------
Wireless Network
  [x] Foobar     (83%)
  [ ] blahfasel  (60%)
  [ ] muckebock  (50%)
  Connect to Hidden Wireless Network
  Create New Wireless Network
-------------------------------------
VPN
  [ ] MyCompany (openvpn)
  [ ] @Home (vpnc)


The user is able to activate or deactivate a connection by clicking into
a checkbox, or even better using a radio button because you can only have
one active connection for each physical device. The horizonal rules are
not
really necessary but I thought you like them ;-)

>> Are there currently any plans to polish the nm-applet?
> 
> Mainly plans to stop using a GtkMenu widget entirely and move to a more
> freeform widget.  That's not in-progress yet though.  Until then we can
> certainly discuss ways to make the current menu-based approach better,
> especially if we find that users are confused with it.  We should have a
> lot better data on the new applet too given that both Ubuntu 9.10 and
> Fedora 12 shipped with it.
> 

You are right. The user will give response. But most of them do have a
more
or less technical background. The users I am thinking about are really
native
end users. They know their business application (more or less). They know
the
difference between eMail and a letter. That's it. 

My problem is that I have thousands of them ;-)

HG

> Dan