[Usability] Re: [Desktop_architects] Printing dialog and GNOME

[Tuomo Valkonen <tuomov modeemi fi>]

On 2005-12-13, Havoc Pennington <hp pobox com> wrote:
>> Same with the file dialog. Apparently it's too "confusing" to let users
>> just type the filename. So gnome forces you to do the icon selection
>> thing, never mind that it's a million times slower.
>
> I don't think "too confusing" was the reason here either, though I
> can't speak authoritatively since I didn't design this.
>
> There was also a bad rap here since in the original design spec (and
> current file selector) you can in fact just type the filename. The
> text entry box appears as soon as you press a key. You can also press
> Ctrl+L to get a text box with autocomplete. But version 1.0 didn't
> have this since the coders ran out of time.

Yeah, Yet Another Dialog (tm). As if there weren't already enough of
those in the jungle that the WIMP desktop paradigm is. And besides, the
completion support in that dialog sucks. You have to move your hand very
far away from the typing position to the cursor keys to select among
them. Same with the typeahead find in the main dialog; it doesn't support
.. / and so on; you have to move your hand to Alt+Up the go a directory
upwards. Not my idea of usability; infact, quite the opposite.

Gnome is for mice, not men. Mice have small brains. That may explain
why Linus thinks it is designed for idiots.

I hear that Firefox has switched to Gnome file chooser even in Debian.
The moment such a version of firefox appears in testing, I will file a
bug report, switch to non-free software, Opera, and will recommend
everyone else to do so as well, because Firefox has become too infected
with the disease that is the Mono-culture of the Gnome Hegemony (and
because Konqueror isn't quite there yet).

-- 
Tuomo