Re: [Usability] screenshot & recording desktop video

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

Do one thing well.

For what it is worth I think it might be best to have a "Record Desktop"
tool that is seperate from the Screenshot applet.

Attempting to do both make the proposed dialog a little too confusing for
my liking.


On Fri, 10 Jun 2005, Luis Villa wrote:

> Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 14:50:22 -0400
> From: Luis Villa <luis villa gmail com>
> To: "jeroen xs4all nl" <jeroen xs4all nl>
> Cc: usability gnome org
> Subject: Re: [Usability] screenshot & recording desktop video
>
> On 6/10/05, jeroen xs4all nl <jeroen xs4all nl> wrote:
> > Right. I was thinking about the same thing (people will probably know
what
> > Quicktime and Windows Media Video mean, but Ogg Theora...).
> >
> > I think your description is too vague though. Probably something like
> > "Windows video (AVI)" or "Apple video (Quicktime)", but i'll let other
> > people (translators) come up with better descriptions :)
>
> The usability and/or doc people are a lot more appropriate than the
> translators :) *cough* usability folks, back me up here *cough* :)

Luis is right.  If it is broken then it is broken and an appropriate
description needs to be choosen in the first place that can be
internationalised and localised later without the work of translators any
harder than it already is.

The easy thing for translators to do is "correct" things in their locale
but translators, documenter and anyone else taking a detailed look at an
application can provide valuable feedback and really help to improve Gnome
instead of papering over the cracks.
(Personally I'd love if translators could find more terms that make sense
in both British and American English.  The example I always use is
Bookmarks as it doesn't have ambiguous spelling like Favourites does and
on top of that I think it is a better metaphor and Microsoft were giving
their brand of Shortcuts a different name just for the sake it).

I may regret saying this later but I would sacrifice short term usability
and default to Ogg Theora.  We get the better long term usability from
using and promoting open standards.  If a "best compatibility"  option is
really needed then MPEG2 could probably also be provided somwhere else.
The merits of the available video formats would certainly need to be
explained in the documentation.

If it were up to me I would try to provide more information.  I might make
the drop down menu use the full width of the dialog there would be room to
include slightly more descriptive labels like:
Ogg Theora Video (.ogg)

I might also change the OK button to use GTK_STOCK_MEDIA_RECORD


Disclaimer: this message is not as lucid and coherent as I might like but
I'm tired and hungry and I'm going home.

Later

Alan

> Other than this, I find the dialog really quite nice- really glad to
> see someone tackling it- will be really nice to have- insert more
> incoherent but really happy mumblings here- Thanks!

What he said +1

This is a sweet new addition to Gnome I have to say.

- Alan