Re: [Usability] Three dialog problems

["Matthew Nuzum" <newz bearfruit org>]

On 2/20/07, Mariano Suárez-Alvarez <msuarezalvarez arnet com ar> wrote:
> > The Add/Remove buttons are for Bookmarks (Places). Select a folder
> > in the file list, hit Add and you have a new entry. I added all
> > my bookmarks through file dialogs, as it is when using them, I
> > noticed the palces I need frequently. One could argue adding/removing
> > could be done with drag and drop and/or context menus. There's a
> > discoverability problem, but it looks like that's the case with the
> > buttons, too, strange as it might seem.
>
> You -can- drag and drop folders from the list to the bookmarks list.
>
> The good thing about the buttons is that the user can hover the pointer
> on them and get tooltips.
>
> Also, the reason why Matthew is seeing dot files in the file list is
> because he, at some point in the past, told the dialog to show them

Ah. Nice. Disabled that easily enough.

About the Add/Remove buttons, I've added things to the bookmarks in
the past by right clicking folders and using the context menu.

Since this is somewhat of an "advanced feature" (compared to
"essential feature") don't you think that it should be relegated to a
place where they are discoverable but out of the way?

It seems Gnome's HIG insists that buttons be huge with lots of padding
around the labels, making it impossible to create subtle UI elements.
By getting rid of the buttons, it would allow enough room to move the
character coding label and select list up parallel to "all files" and
make the file list a full 30% larger than it is now.

By the way, this particular problem appears to be more prevalent with
gedit. It doesn't seem nearly as important to me as the ambiguity
between file types and the difficulty in identifying the modified
time. Two problems that are more wide-spread.

--
Matthew Nuzum
www.bearfruit.org
newz2000 on freenode