Re: [Usability]Galeon 2 usability

[Janne Morén <jan moren lucs lu se>]

On Mon, 2002-10-14 at 15:41, Calum Benson wrote:
> On Sun, 2002-10-13 at 18:42, Ricardo Fernández Pascual wrote:
> 
> >         Specifically, there is no "Settings" menu in galeon 2 (the
> >         "Preferences" menu item is in the "Edit" menu). In galeon 1
> >         there was a "Settings" menu with that menu item and some often
> >         toggled options (like javascript, java...). It made those
> >         options more easily reachable. The question is if they should be
> >         so easily available or it is better to keep the UI simpler.
> 
> I haven't seen the new menu layout so it's hard to offer concrete
> suggestions, but as part of the HIG team I really would prefer that
> there is no menu called 'Settings'.  Part of the rationale behind the
> suggested menu layout in the HIG was to decide on a single term for
> 'Preferences', and make sure it always appeared in the same place in the
> interface.  Too many GUIs used terms like Options, Settings and
> Preferences in different places all at the same time, so you were never
> sure where to find the actual preference that you wanted to change.
> 
> Perhaps the solution for Galeon is just to rename the Settings menu, but
> it's more likely that at least some of its items could be
> redistributed.  For example, things like 'use own fonts' and 'use own
> colours' would be good candidates for moving to the View menu instead,
> since they affect the current view of the document. (This depends on how
> long the View menu already is, of course).

Well, as other have pointed out, the HIG are guidelines, and can be
altered for specific reasons. I see the setting menu as providing some
extremely good functionality, and it is reinforced by them all being
collected into one place. In fact, I'd love to be able to enable and
disable plugins like Flash and realplayer in the same manner (and I
would be _really_ happy if the settings would be remembered on a
per-site basis :) ).

A good suggestion I saw in this thread is to not have it as a menu at
all, but to implement it as a drop-down toolbar item. It would be as
accessible to the users as the menu, and not alter the menu structure.

As a toolbar item, it could be enabled and disabled just like other
toolbar items via the preferences; the default could well be not to
include it to make for a cleaner default.

> >         - gestures: galeon 1 supported gestures. This added some
> >         preferences to the already crowded dialog. Gestures were not
> >         enabled by default because they conflicted with the standard
> >         context menu. Should gestures be kept in galeon 2? Should they
> >         be enabled  by default?
> 
> I have to confess I've never played with them, but if they conflict with
> standard toolkit features like popup menus, then I would vote for
> disabling them by default.

Disabling them by default is fine. Removing them altogether is not.
Also, there might be an idea to look at the gestures used in Mozilla to
minimize dissociation between apps.

The major strength of Galeon1 has been that it is very powerful (with
the Settings, gestures and combination of Tabs and windows) while
remaining a clean browser. It would be a shame to throw it all away.

-- 
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.

Tel.    +46-046 222 8588             Dr. Janne Morén
Home:   +46-046 211 4973             Dept. of Cognitive Science
Fax:    +46-046 222 9758             Kungshuset, Lund
                                     S-222 22 Lund, Sweden