Re: Permission requested to commit UI changes to gnome-display-properties

[Federico Mena Quintero <federico novell com>]

Replying to various people in this thread:

> > On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 5:16 AM, Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org> wrote:
> > 
> > > In addition to this, do we have any usability people who can say that
> > > this is an improvement? :-)

I'm the usability person here ;)  Basically, in the previous version,
the controls related to the selected monitor were not directly adjacent
to the monitors.  You had to skip visually over the "Mirror screens" and
"Detect monitors" buttons.

Now, options that apply to everything (mirror / detect) are together,
while options for a specific monitor are separate from those.  Also, the
horizontal layout of the monitors display leads your eye to the right,
where the per-monitor options are.

On Mon, 2010-02-15 at 12:57 -0800, Dylan McCall wrote:
>       * The Detect Monitors button seems weirdly placed beside "mirror
>         screens". This has always been the case, but it's amplified here
>         by being closer to that check box instead of to the right of the
>         window.

Yeah, I don't quite like its placement, either.  In a subsequent version
I may move the "Monitor: Acer 19" label to be an actual combo-box, with
a "detect monitors" beside it for when you go, "WTF, my monitor is not
there?".  But not just yet.

>       * What incentive is there behind removing that "Drag the monitors
>         to set their place" label?

The label looked horrible by itself in a horizontal line.

I've added a tooltip as Luca suggested.

And Luca said...

> 
>       * Rework on/off radios in a single checkbox with a good label
> and        accelerator

I like the separate radios better.  One problem I've found with (some)
checkboxes is that it's not obvious what the "other" state means.  For
monitors, on/off seems simple enough to have in radio buttons.

>       * Add a tooltip (i.e. GtkTooltip) on preview area with something
>         like "Select a monitor to change its properties, drag to
>         rearrange its placement": this could help novice user that the
>         representation is useful to perform actions too

Done.

>       * Add a tooltip for "Mirror screens" (and disable it when you
> have
>         just one monitor)

I've always hated that label.  I've made it read "Same image in all
monitors", and it works beautifully :)

We were already disabling the checkbox in 2.29, BTW.

>       * Reduce the words used to identify the "video output" from
> three
>         (display, screen, monitor) to one

Oh, yes, done!  I've been wanting to do this for some time.  Thanks for
the reminder.

I've merged the branch to the master one and pushed it now.  Thanks,
guys.

  Federico