Re: [Usability] New "Add to panel" dialog

["Vincent Untz" <vuntz gnome org>]

Hi,

On Thu, October 20, 2005 00:35, Manu Cornet wrote:
> I have been working on a new version of the "add to panel" dialog, for
> the Ubuntu distro. This dialog is already available by default in the
> new Ubuntu "Breezy Badger" version.

People might be interested in reading Calum's posts about this dialog:

http://blogs.gnome.org/view/calum/2005/08/16/0
http://blogs.gnome.org/view/calum/2005/09/20/1

[...]

> * Applets are organized into categories.

I'm not sure whether categories are good or not: it's really hard to get
them right since applets do not easily fall in one and only one category.

> * Selected applet's description appears below the canvas.

As others have said, a tooltip might be better.

> The problem is that of long applet names. Here it is : in the canvas
> layout, the vertical distance between an icon and the one directly under
> it is determined by the largest number of text lines in the applet
> names. Meaning : if all applet names fit in one or two lines of text,
> everything is fine. Now if just one applet's name takes four lines of
> text, all applets are spread too far apart (certically). Hope I'm not
> too hard to understand :) So here are the solutions I see :

Screenshot to illustrate the problem:
http://tmp.vuntz.net/Capture-Ajouter%20au%20tableau%20de%20bord.png

I'm okay with this new dialog, but I'm wondering if an improved version
of the current dialog could be a good choice. By improved, I mean: smaller
icons, no big text (but we keep the bold), search functions as in Manu's
proposition, etc. I don't know.

Anyway, I want to thank Manu for his efforts to improve this dialog!

Vincent

-- 
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