comments on build available in F9

["Luis Villa" <luis tieguy org>]

So... some comments on the bigboard/o-d version available in f9
preview. I complain because I love. :) Also, I've stopped filing bugs
in bugzilla, because even serious bugs like 1277, 1334, and 1350 don't
seem to be responded to, so you're getting feedback here.

* google calendar widget appears broken; it shows the calendar for a
split second and then *poof* back to 'login to google' button with no
explanation. No progress indicator while logging in, either, which is
minor but irritating. (Nor does it seem to pull from my google login
cookie as I had expected?)  (I'm also a little unclear on why this is
here- every other widget seems to be about launching/opening things;
calendar not so much. Seems like it would be a lot more appropriate
either in the already-existing clock calendar or in a
show-occasionally osx-style widget setup, not in the panel.)

* it would be really nice if on smaller screens bigboard started in
'minimized sidebar mode' by default, since it is... very large on a
1024x768 screen. (Alternately, maybe that could be made more
discoverable?) Also would also be nice if the sidebar applet worked;
it doesn't here. It'll hide the sidebar once and then it never comes
back. Finally, would be nice if there were some way to make things
smaller- bigboard is very legible, which is great for new users, but
for anyone with a large number of friends, files, or apps, you don't
get much of any of them. (For example, compare how many pixels a
friend takes in the default gaim user list with how many pixels a
friend takes up in the default bigboard view.)

* might want to work on search functionality a bit; searching for
'clark' returns bryan clark out of my friends list, but searching for
'bryan' does not return bryan clark. (Search results also don't do
much- can't seem to click on them- but I assume that is known?)

* the pidgin integration is quite nice, but the 'more' view opens up
wider than my screen, yet with only one column of people in it. And it
can't be narrowed. (Turns out this is because one of my friends has a
very, very long away message. Still, should be wrapped or truncated.)

* pidgin sorts my friends list by log size- the more I've talked to
them, the closer they are to the top. This makes the standard pidgin
friends list much easier to find people in than the bigboard list,
though perhaps in part that is because I'm not used to using search
there.

* in the information popup, why is 'visit account page' a totally
different grammar structure than 'desktop preferences' and 'sidebar
preferences'? Shouldn't it just be 'account information' or 'personal
information'?

* google docs plugin doesn't seem to work.

* apps->more is confusing to me- very, very busy.

* the (i) button doesn't have a mouse tip (nothing does now that I
notice it), and it is totally unclear what it does at a casual glance-
doesn't look like a button, not clear that it is 'information.' It
also shows me my mugshot icon again- why? it's like 20 pixels away
over there already :)

Those are an hour's experimentation worth of impressions. Hope they are of use.

Luis