Re: [Usability] Combo box in a status bar

[Vadim Peretokin <vperetokin gmail com>]

On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 5:47 PM, Kirk Bridger <kbridger shaw ca> wrote:

Hi Vadim,

Here are my thoughts.

1 - is it important that the user know which setting is currently active?  If so then having this dropdown always visible would be a good thing.  If not, then it adds up to visual clutter.

I would say it is.
 

2 - if the user doesn't need to know the current value of the setting, then you could consider a solution like your window picker (from the screenshots section of the website you linked).  That way they have a quicker way to access the profiles, but do not need to always see the current profile name.  Of course then you're stuck with a button visible all the time, which really doesn't seem to add a lot, other than reducing the visual clutter by abstracting it all to a single button.

Yes, that is what I was thinking - you'll notice that the status bar currently says which profile is active. Replacing it with a combo box could do the trick to show, and be able to change, the profiles.

 

3 - I've installed Shutter (very cool!) and am not quite clear on what purpose the profiles have.  Could you elaborate a bit on how they're used, possibly with examples?

They adjust your shutter preferences. For example, a person who works on documentation might need special settings for when taking documentation screenshots (have a timed delay, don't capture the mouse, etc) - but they wouldn't need this when taking a screenshot of their desktop for a friend. So they could have a "documentation" and a "usual" profile.

Hope that explains it okay
 

Kirk





Vadim Peretokin wrote:

Could anyone offer any input on this?

Thank you!

On 3/12/09, Vadim Peretokin <vperetokin gmail com> wrote:

Hi!

I have a usability question. An application I'm on the developer team for benefits extensively from different preferences settings, so it allows the user to make 'profiles' and change them on-the-fly.

One issue that was raised however is that it's too tedious to go to edit ▸ preferences and choose a new profile, with the suggestion of instead having a combo box in the main window's statusbar that would allow profile changing.

I'm wondering if anyone here can suggest a better method or this one is fine?

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