Re: [Usability] Re: your mail

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004, Thorsten Wilms wrote:

> Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 11:46:12 +0200
> From: Thorsten Wilms <t_w_ freenet de>
> Reply-To: tw stud uni-wuppertal de
> To: Gtk+/Gnome Usability MailingList <usability gnome org>
> Subject: [Usability] Re: your mail
>
> On Tue, Jun 15, 2004 at 01:00:04AM +0100, Alan Horkan wrote:
> >
> > If CSDI is the way to go then what makes the toolbox the right way to do
> > it?  Why not have a seperate window containing a menubar as the top level
> > control window? (which is what Mathematica does).
>
> The toolbox is needed most of the time.

Okay, I'm following this part

> It also contains the main menu.

but not this part.

It is odd that the small menu with not much in it is the "main" menu.

> Having a control window with just a menu would only make for an additional

I dont know if you have seen the kind of setup I'm talking about but I
think it would make much more sense to have one single menu instead of
two and I am still not convinced that having the toolbox as the control
window is inherently better.

> window, wasting space with an extra titlebar and adding to the window
> management headache.

I admit I cannot haven't looked at it long enough to say that this way fo
doing CDSI is better but I dont think you can say this approach is
definately any worse than the way GIMP does CSDI.  (What I'm saying that
even thought I dont have CSDI by all means have CSDI in there and make
sure that those who do CSDI, do it well).

If people really want the HIG to be more enthusiastic about CSDI
interfaces it will need to be made much clearer how and when to use CSDI
and what the benifits are, because even if in a totally objective judgment
theoretical judgement they are better, they still are at a disadvantage in
practice by being different from the majority of applictions which use SDI
the learning curve will inevitably be greater.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan