Re: [Usability] GtkEntry with units

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt myrealbox com>]

On Jan 22, 2007, at 8:03 PM, Robert Staudinger wrote:
> ...
> The option menu was my intuitive first thought as well, but I'm a bit
> concerned it may not work out very well when the GtkEntry is stretched
> to fit the overall dialog layout:
> ------------------------- --------
> |123                     | cm <> |
> ------------------------- --------
> vs.
> ----------------------------------
> |123cm                           |
> ----------------------------------
> where the latter would look much more natural.

If the field is really that wide, there is something wrong with the 
window layout. The width of fields should be at least roughly 
proportionate to the length of the data people are likely to enter in 
them (though it's best to avoid using more than two or three lengths in 
a single window).

> Maybe a GtkEntryCompletion or GtkComboBoxEntry could be used to allow
> for numeric and unit input in the same GtkEntry. That way the allowed
> unit abbreviations can just typed straight away or alternatively
> selected from the dropdown.
> ----------------------------------
> |123cm                         <>|
> ----------------------------------

In a combo box, items selected from the menu replace the whole of the 
entered text. To replace just part of the text (the units of 
measurement) would be surprising.

> Saving the extra widget would make dialogs look simpler (also
> GtkComboBox that's now preferred over the deprecated GtkOptionMenu
> takes up a lot of space for padding to make the dropdown-arrow easy to
> hit.).
> ...

Unless it's misnaming on the part of the GTK developers, I don't know 
what it means for "GtkComboBox" to be "preferred over the deprecated 
GtkOptionMenu". Combo boxes and option menus are quite different 
controls, with different purposes and behaviors.

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