[Setup-tool-hackers] Users-admin

[Arturo Espinosa Aldama <arturo mezcal dyndns org>]

OK, this is a message Chema and me prepared.

I got together with arturo because he (as a user)
had some problems with the new user interface of the
users tool. Here are the comments that we came up with.
Plese note that changing (AGAIN) is not only the result
of not thinking about it before implementing it but sometimes
you need to click the actual program to find this problems.

<Arturo> I acknowledge the fact that users-admin is in some kind of
transition face, and that I hadn't seen the tool for some time, so this
agravated the impression I got. </Arturo>


- Multiple error messages

If you add a new user and just press OK without fillin in any info, you
don't get 1, but 4, sequential gnome_error_messages, complaining about the
missing stuff. This quite annoying and unnecesary. As soon as the first
error is OKayed, the user should be left back in the settings dialog, or
get all of the errors in one piece of text at once.

- Profiles tab v.s. profiles button

Anna asked where to put the profiles gui. I didn't knew back then
where to put it. We think it is best as it is in the mockup, to have
a profiles button in the users tab which will be displayed when the
advanced mode is selected. It works better than the tab. Also the button
should only be shown in adv. mode.

- The new icons

The icon in the profiles dialog conflicts with the icon un the users
tab of the main dialog. They both represent the same idea but they
look completelly different, this might be a temp icon i don't know.
I would recommend puttin the users icon in the profiles window untill
we find a better one.

- Random password

We should remove the random passowrd from the users druid. I think
asking a user on a druid if he wants a random pasword might confuse him.

- Consistency

We should be consistent with the policies we pick for setting up
labels/widgets. For example the "Change Password" button has each
word capitalized and the "Generate random passowrd" only has the first
word capitalized. We should also care about leaving a defined amount of
spacing between widgets.

For example, the groups etable has no border, and looks strange on the
bottom and left borders, where it meets the notebook.  The search entry
and the users table are separated by mere 2 pixels, and the profiles
explanation label is not separated from the widgets below.

Other glitches include wrong sized spin buttons, badly aligned icons
(profiles wrench) and labels that say "anna's password" and "I don't have
any interesting to say today".

Even if it is just a test, we should try to make them look the best
possible in these trivial matters.


What I am also thinking is that we are trying to be economic, regarding
the way we add options to the dialogs. Maybe we should try with completly
different designs for basic and advanced mode, so we give the best
interface for the advanced casee and for the beginner case (I'm thinking
about the dialogs only, not the whole  frontend).

Of course, as everything in design, this has a disadvantage: a whole new
widget layout may confuse the user, but maybe not if we give cues of how
things moved around.


Greetings,
Arturo




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