Re: [Usability] [RFC] Proposed AbiWord preferences dialog mockup

[Christian Neumair <chris gnome-de org>]

Am Die, 2003-06-03 um 18.48 schrieb David Adam Bordoley:
> > From: Christian Neumair <chris gnome-de org> 
> > 
> > I just compiled a bunch of screenshots of my mockup for a new AbiWord
> > preferences dialog [1-4].
> > Please have a look at them and make proposals on what I can still
> > improve. I like it much more than the old dialog but I'm not completely
> > satisfied. Especially the buttons IMO are far away from looking perfect.
> > Thanks for your efforts!

I already got some suggestions from the abiword mailing list.
The problem is that both of the lists are closed so postings are not
really exchanged.

> > [1] http://gnome-de.org/~manny/prefsmockup1.png
> General:
> 1. Why not move the statusbar and ruler prefs directly into the view menu. 
> Would make access to these much quicker.
They are in the view menu, too.
I'm not sure whether it's a good idea to keep it in the prefs dialog,
too. Maybe you're right. AW devels?

> 2. I thought there was a global gnome pref for cursor blink, wouldn't be 
> better to use this pref?
I assume this is pref is set by a gconf key. As of today, AbiWord hasn't
got any possibility to interact with gconf. Probably a 2.2 TODO.

> 3. I think it would be better to move the toolbar editting interface stuff 
> into a seperate dialog. In epiphany we use edit->toolbars.
I don't think Ephy's way of handling toolbars is acceptable for AbiWord.
In AW you don't edit particular items, but the toolbar as a whole.

> 4. Why would you disable tooltips?
You are right, it's a fundamental question whether it makes sense to
disable them. I think this option is even dubious cross-platform-wise.
Dom?

> > [2] http://gnome-de.org/~manny/prefsmockup2.png
> 
> I can't pin it down, but it seems like most of these prefs are technobabble. 
> Shouldn't the right to left prefs just work automagically based on locale? 
> The glyph prefs are particularly crypic and meaningless to 99.9% of people i 
> would guess. Are there sane defaults that can be used instead. Seems odd to 
> have a preference for one specific language. 
Dom already told me to remove "Show all/hidden text". That at least
reduces the options. I can't state on the RTL issue, though.

> You should default automatic save to on, thats a nice feature :) 
Hey, that's just a mockup :).
All the defaults are loaded by some config backend at runtime.

> > [3] http://gnome-de.org/~manny/prefsmockup3.png
> 
> If you've chosen to include a custom dictionary, why would you choose not to 
> make suggestions from it? 
Dom told me to remove the custom dictionary as well as the ignored word
list part.


> > [4] http://gnome-de.org/~manny/prefsmockup4.png
> 
> 1. Kill the splash screen pref. Splash screens are poor excuses for long 
> load times. It is especially unneeded now that gnome has application launch 
> feedback.
I think the AbiWord developers will keep it as a kind of a brand. I'm
not sure whether an UI option makes sense. Dom?

> 2. Why would you not automatically load all plugins? (legit question) 
Plugins are handled in a non-gnumeric manner in AbiWord. You add them
manually and probably just don't want them to be loaded automatically.
Maybe the label is a bit confusing. The "all" implies that some are
loaded.

> 3. Are preference schemes really necessary? Seems like something 1 out of 
> 1000 people will use. 
Dom told me to remove this, too.

> Hope these comments are useful. 
Yes. Thanks :).

regs,
 Chris