Re: [Usability] "Input Methods" and "Insert Unicode Control Character" in context menus

[Rodney Dawes <dobey novell com>]

They are for text input using the keyboard. The fact that they are there
has nothing to do with Pango and general text handling in terms of
rendering the data. If Pango could not render the text, it would be
quite useless to have the ability to enter it directly into something
that does not support it. However, computers are party of a very multi-
lingual society, where an input method may be required to enter text in<
another language, from a US keyboard, for example.

As far as the usability of having it in the context menu goes, it is a
submenu, so only adds a very small amount of space to the existing menu,
and it does not require you to use it. In fact, I don't think I've ever
even used the right click menu, except to test that the Input Methods
submenu was working ok, when it was added to GtkHTML, so that Evolution
could support input of text for the languages where such methods are
needed.

I would probably suggest just not using it, if you do not want to use it
for now. Perhaps in the future, this could be an option in the Keyboard
or Locale settings, though.

-- dobey


On Wed, 2005-08-03 at 15:59 +0100, Alan Horkan wrote:
> On Wed, 3 Aug 2005, Todd Chambery wrote:
> 
> > Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2005 08:43:25 -0400
> > From: Todd Chambery <todd chambery gmail com>
> > To: usability gnome org
> > Subject: [Usability] "Input Methods" and "Insert Unicode Control
> >     Character" in context menus
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I've been using Gnome a while, and the "Input Methods"/"Insert Unicode
> > Control Character" options that show up in every text entry context
> > menu has always puzzled me.  I've never had a need to use them (they
> > are "foreign" to a MS Windows user) and feel that they unnecessarily
> > clutter the context menu.
> 
> > Is there a way to turn off these context menu options?
> 
> Not that I know of, but it may be possible.
> 
> I believe they are for complex text input and developers insisted on
> having them in an easy to find place, and techincal considerations trumped
> usability cocerns.  I was under the impression that improvements to Pango
> and the general text handling in Gnome might eventually allow these menu
> items to be removed entirely.  Hopefully someone more expert can shed some
> light on these and explain it better.
> 
> Sincerely
> 
> Alan Horkan
> http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/
> 
> 
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