Re: gui design of nm-applet

[Hans-Gerd van Schelve <hg van-schelve de>]

On Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:50:03 +0100, van Schelve <public van-schelve de>
wrote:
> 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:
One additional thing I thought about could be a "disconnect" entry
in each section
> 
> -------------------------------------
> Wired Network
>   [ ] Auto eth0 (100Mit FD)
    disconnect from this device
> -------------------------------------
> Mobile Broadband
>   [x] MyCompany
    disconnect from this device
> -------------------------------------
> Nokia 6680 (Bluetooth)
>   [ ] MyCompany
    disconnect from this device
> -------------------------------------
> Wireless Network
>   [x] Foobar     (83%)
>   [ ] blahfasel  (60%)
>   [ ] muckebock  (50%)
>   Connect to Hidden Wireless Network
>   Create New Wireless Network
    disconnect from this device
> -------------------------------------
> VPN
>   [ ] MyCompany (openvpn)
>   [ ] @Home (vpnc)
    disconnect vpn
> 
> 
> 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
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