Re: [Usability] Re: Settings windows and dialogs

[Gregory Merchan <merchan phys lsu edu>]

On Wed, Jan 16, 2002 at 06:41:57PM -0500, Havoc Pennington wrote:
<snip>
>  a) push the toolkit, window manager, etc. in the right long-term 
>     direction by writing down the Ultimate Master Plan for a given 
>     area, and filing appropriate bugzilla reports

This should have been done before the project started, and not just for UI.


>  b) document what application authors should do in the present, using
>     available APIs, ideally even documenting which specific APIs to
>     use and how. The APIs must be things in the platform libraries
>     today. The recommendation cannot suggest cut-and-pasting big hunks
>     of error-prone stuff all over creation.

You make a window, bind a few keys to close it and do whatever app-specific
things you'd do. If a help button is needed, you place it in the top-right
corner of whatever page it's needed on. That's it. It's very simple and
is all that's needed to introduce instant-apply.


<snip>
>
> My opinion is that the HIG should contain b), while a) should be
> tracked via lists, bugzilla, and short HTML or text documents written
> up and linked to from bugzilla or list posts.

If (a) had been done then the Ultimate Master Plan could be incrementally
improved, and those wanting to work on GNOME could be pointed to sections
needing completed or improved implementation rather than having an ecclectic
gathering of About boxes.


> In any case, on this concrete issue my request is for a 2.0
> recommendation that is reasonable to do with our current API, without
> creating a maintenance disaster (not an option) or breaking the freeze
> with a huge untested API (not an option either). Ideally the 2.0
> recommendation would go in the HIG.

There are fewer than 16 capplets and I doubt there are many apps already
using instant-apply, so there should be no maintenance disaster. The API
I've made is not huge. I expect 4 of the functions would be used in 2.0:
2 _new(), 1 _append(), 1 setter; everything else is already part of the
system.


> If we can't get such a recommendation then we will have to make it up
> ourselves. I would personally make up the Done button for the code I
> write.
<snip>

I'm not going to make a recommendation for a Done button; though it's
better than using Close or OK. But I'm not the lead of the GUP. Talk
to him if you want such a recommendation.


Cheers,
Greg Merchan