Re: [Usability] Dialogs and Maximize button

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt myrealbox com>]

On Sep 10, 2006, at 10:34 AM, Rodney Dawes wrote:
> On Sat, 2006-09-09 at 11:49 -0600, Elijah Newren wrote:
> > On 9/8/06, Olaf van der Spek <OvdSpek liacs nl> wrote:
> ...
> > > The HIG says (implicitly) dialogs shouldn't have a maximize button.
> > >
> > > http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/windows-dialog.html
> ...
> > Also worth noting is http://live.gnome.org/Metacity/WindowTypes, which
> > is mpt's work to try to extend the list of window types and provide
> > better visual clues about each window.

(I suck for not having finished that page by now.)

> > > Can this be fixed such that dialogs can have a maximize button?
> > > Even better, can maximize buttons be automatically added to every 
> > > window that is resizable?

(For the past few months I've been experimenting with having no 
maximize  buttons at all. So far, so good.:-)

> > Given that both the HIG and mpt's extensions/modifications suggest no
> > maximize button for such windows, it is possible that we should turn
> > this question around: should we disable resizing for window types that
> > shouldn't have a maximize button?  Neither the HIG nor mpt's write-up
> > addresses that question, and it seems some users are confused by the
> > ability to resize if the window can't be maximized.
>
> If one automatically disables resizing of windows, may hellfire fall
> upon his skull. There are many MANY dialogs that have scrollable 
> content inside them.

That is true. Some dialogs should be resizable, and some non-dialog 
windows should not be. You can't determine resizability by window type. 
<http://www.mail-archive.com/usability gnome org/msg02436.html>

> Some of the content useful for more advanced users it outside the 
> default visible area, and can be scrolled to.

I don't think I've ever seen a window like that. Can you give an 
example?

> Resizing the window to make this content viewable makes the dialog 
> much more useful for those users. In reality, there should be 
> absolutely NO windows on the desktop, which cannot be resized.
> ...

At one level, this is already true: you can use a window manager that 
forces every window to be resizable. But that doesn't mean it's a good 
idea for the majority of people. Alerts are the obvious example: nobody 
benefits from having an alert that can be made larger than needed to 
show all its text, while some people benefit from alerts having an 
instantly recognizable size.

> I guess it's a problem that dialogs currently aren't iconifiable 
> either. Is this a metacity or GTK+ bug though?
> ...

A dialog should minimize automatically when you minimize its parent 
window. If minimizing it without minimizing its parent window is 
appropriate, it shouldn't be a dialog.

--
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/