Re: revised patch to change tooltips

["Kevin Vandersloot" <kfv101 psu edu>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Calum Benson" <calum benson sun com>
To: "nils" <n p sun com>
Cc: <usability gnome org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2001 8:12 AM
Subject: Re: revised patch to change tooltips


> nils wrote:
>
> > http://www242.pair.com/nilsp/nils/panel/menus.html
> > Well, here's another update. This time there are proposals for the
tooltips.
>
> Are multi-line tooltips possible in gtk2.0?  I think some of the longer
> suggestions could get quite hard to read if they had to go on a single
> line.
>
> > I think the big open issue is, what happens
> > when we change a menu item so it does not map 1-1 with the app name?
> > Do we change the app name (hard) or do we at least make some reference
> > to the menu item in the app title bar (easier)?
>
> I guess a related question with this approach is what do you do when
> people add two different apps to the menus that do much the same thing,
> e.g. Xchat and GnomeChat, Gnotepad and Gedit, Clock and Another Clock?
> The tooltips and menu items would be pretty much identical for the two
> apps.  Perhaps the application name also needs to be retained in the
> menu or the tooltip somehow?

How about
Gedit Text Editor - like Ximian does
or
Text Editor (Gedit)

>
> Cheeri,
> Calum.
>


I have a few comments on the proposal also. Hope you don't mind :)

First it seems there is an inconsistency with appending the term "with a
program called .." to the tooltip. This seems unnecessary to me. If it is
used shouldn't it be used for every tooltip?

Second it seems that comments like "if you have a microphone connected to
your computer" are also unnecessary. Again for consistency there are some
tooltips missing comments like this - for example the volume meter which
would have to read "If you have speakers connected to your computer, you can
use this program to adjust the volume." Same thing with gdict, evolution -
"If you are connected to a network, ...." Taken to the extreme - Gnucash "If
you have any personal finances, you can use this program to manage them" ,
or even better - Gnibbles "If you have too much free time, use this program
to waste it" ; )

Also, is it right to actually put tooltips for the menu items? For the theme
I use the tooltip background color is exactly the same as the menu
background, so the tooltips look like menuitems. Does this happen for the
default theme or most themes? I was glad that Ximian removed the tooltips
from the menu.

Regards,
Kevin