Re: [Setup-tool-hackers] Re: networking.glade

[Miguel de Icaza <miguel helixcode com>]

> 1. The networking settings dialog is great. The only page which I find
> non-intuitive
> is the DNS page. Specifically, it isn't clear to me how the user should
> enter text into the
> large text boxes ("DNS Servers" and "Search domains") --if I want to
> enter two domains into the list of search domains, would I delineate
> them with commas? line breaks?

That was my first reaction as well, but then I remembered the way this
is done in the Mac, and I figured `That was nice and easy'.

Anyways, a feaure I really like from the Hans/Arturo dialog boxes is
that they contained some explanation messages right in the dialog
box.  Short and precise, but better than just the plain labels.

An idea Jacob and I have been playing around is to use status message
displays, so when you select the DNS or the Search domain thing, a
line in the bottom would display the help, or a little box (like the
one you see in Microsoft outlook for some dialog boxes) like this:

+----------------------------------------------------
|        ___
|	/   \
|	| i |   You could use a shower
|       \___/
+---------------------===============================


Ok, it is a lot more discrete in Outlook, and it comes in a box with a
differet color.

> In the rest of the HST, when the user is asked to add items to a list,
> we use a format such as 
> on your Hosts tab...with "add" or "insert" buttons and small text
> entries. I'd like to see this format preserved where possible, to reduce
> the HST's learning curve. 

Well, the problem is that in reality you also need "Move up" and "Move
down" buttons (because you need to be able to control the order in
which they are listed), so the result:

	Add, Remove, Move up, Move down

Leads to a pretty bad user interface.  It is very frustrating to use.
Again, I was surprised at the beginning but then I remembered how
frustrated I got when I used the "Add/Remove/Up/Down" interfaces.

Miguel.

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