Re: [Usability]preferred applications dialog

[Mathew Johnston <johnston capsaicin ca>]

> They aren't widely used throughout the desktop, this is right. But if we
> always used that as a reason for not trying new things we cannot get
> really forward IMHO.

You're certainly correct; ideas should never be dismissed simply because
they're different or new. :)

> If you wanna know how we should handle the click and show thingies
> inside the dialog you can have a look at glade (glade gave me the idea
> to use toggles)

I don't dislike them, really. We can pretty simply do a cost benefit
analyis against the feature. I'll list the costs and the benefits that I
can see, and everyone else should feel free to add to this list.

Benefits:
- Scales to fit spaces where current solutions don't
- Could also hold icons and things.
- Can act as yes/no but could also offer the ability to toggle through
multiple options.

Costs:
- Replaces already established solutions so it requires retraining
- Don't give an idea of all available options to toggle through
- While could allow more than yes/no, there's no way to select a
specific item, as there is with drop down boxes

> <quote>
> If you have more than about six tabs in a notebook, use a list control
> instead of tabs to switch between the pages of controls.
> </quote>

While this probably isn't the apropriate thread, I'm not sure that this
HIG recommendation is wise. What happens when a well established app
breaks the 6 item barrier? The configuration interface has to change
somewhat drasticly and many users see a large change.

> I know that we don't have these six items at the moment, but I would
> prefer the tree because of it's cleaner look.

That too :)

> So what protocols should window managers, terminals and editors listen
> to?

Well, where did the Window Manager come in? I don't see it in my current
preferred apps capplet. For web browser and text editor, you'd do that
through the same mechanism that you would to specify that XMMS should be
the primary tool used to "open" mp3 files over HTTP. For terminal, you'd
probably end up binding an application to terminal:// or something. Of
course, since the new system isn't yet defined, I can't give much more
detail :)

Mat.