Re: [Usability] Drag handles for dialogs and other windows

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Sat, 21 Jun 2003, Reinout van Schouwen wrote:

> Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 02:18:12 +0200 (CEST)
> From: Reinout van Schouwen <reinout cs vu nl>
> To: Gregory Merchan <merchan baton phys lsu edu>
> Cc: usability gnome org
> Subject: Re: [Usability] Drag handles for dialogs and other windows
>
> On Thu, 19 Jun 2003, Gregory Merchan wrote:
>
> >   Should GNOME dialogs and similar resizable windows provide a drag handle?
>
> I don't really see a reason why, do you? Is emphasizing the resizeability
> of a dialog that important? Shouldn't the dialog just be designed not to
> need resizing?

Ha!
Stop you'll make me cry.*

But seriously, I would love to live in an ideal world there are a many
factors effecting window size, as many as or more than any web page even
if Jakob Nielsen doesn't think so (an incredible lack of insight that
almost ruined the rest his book for me).

You cannot assume the font size will stay the same.
You cannot assume the word and message length will be the same in another
langauge.
Some themes even affect layout.
Then there are people with small screens (old hardware, compact
portables).
And those are just the ones I can think of.

The dialog should be designed not to need resizing but too many
programs dont even have well designed dialogs let alone perfect ones.

Alan Horkan
http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/

* I dont mean to be flippant and idealism is good but this is a concept I
have been trying to explain (albeit poorly) on and off for a few years and
I hope I explained properly to Havoc at GUADEC but somebody somewhere is
setting things so that they cannot be resized and it drives me completely
nuts.