Preferences clean up (for the xth time)

[Patrick Robertson]

I had a brief look through the preferences a few days ago, and here are some simplifications I plan on making, please comment on whether you think they're good or not.

* Remove the "warn before quitting" option and make this default (this one's not 100%)

* Remove the "Normal/Left/Right" drop down when the "Show icon in menu bar" pref is ticked. I don't see the real need for this

* Remove the "install updates without asking" and "restart immediately" preferences

* Move the "application update type" pref from the "extras" tab to be with the other update stuff

* remove the "check for updates" drown down, and only have "On launch" so it reads: "Check for updates on launch"

* rename the "now" button to "check now"

* Remove the "load icons for all results" and "load previews" options.

* move the remaining "appearance" prefs into "application" (this one's not 100%)

* Add a description to the colour palette. Remove the colour palette from the main preferences, make it appear by clicking a "customise" button, like the one that appears for the Nostromo interface

* In the command prefs, remove the "hide if pressed when already visible" option, and make this the default.

* Remove the "alternative services key" option. does it work?

* In the extras prefs, remove the "pull selection from front application instead of Finder" option and make this default

* Add an explanation to the "actions" preferences and move it above the double line (would put it 1st in the list I guess)

* general re-wording and making things read a bit better. E.g. If you don't know already, then "Row height" in the command prefs would mean absolutely nothing to you

[Rob McBroom]

On Mar 26, 2012, at 11:11 AM, Patrick Robertson wrote:

* Remove the "warn before quitting" option and make this default (this one's not 100%)

I have it disabled and use the immediate Quit quite a bit, but my workflow obviously isn’t typical. If you think it’s best for most people, it won’t be the end of the world if it’s gone.

* Remove the "Normal/Left/Right" drop down when the "Show icon in menu bar" pref is ticked. I don't see the real need for this

It only applies within a limited scope anyway. I think under 10.4, it may have been able to get you right up against Spotlight, but those days are gone.

* Remove the "install updates without asking" and "restart immediately” preferences

OK with me.

* Move the "application update type" pref from the "extras" tab to be with the other update stuff

Good idea.

* remove the "check for updates" drown down, and only have "On launch" so it reads: "Check for updates on launch”

Would it not check on a schedule at all? Or would that just be hard-coded?

* rename the "now" button to "check now”

Yes.

* Remove the "load icons for all results" and "load previews" options.

I assume the behavior they represent would be enabled?

* move the remaining "appearance" prefs into "application" (this one's not 100%)

Not thrilled with that one.

* Add a description to the colour palette. Remove the colour palette from the main preferences, make it appear by clicking a "customise" button, like the one that appears for the Nostromo interface

Some tooltips or something would be nice, but I don’t know if it should be moved. Nostromo uses those colors, so if its own customize panel superceeds the ones with the colors on it, how would you customize colors for interfaces that already provide a Customize button? Not sure of the full list, but Cube and Nostromo for sure.

* In the command prefs, remove the "hide if pressed when already visible" option, and make this the default.

OK with me personally, but I wonder if there are people out there that rely on hitting their hotkey again to “start over” when searching.

* Remove the "alternative services key" option. does it work?

What’s it supposed to do? That will have a big impact on my answer. :-)

* In the extras prefs, remove the "pull selection from front application instead of Finder" option and make this default

Agreed.

* Add an explanation to the "actions" preferences and move it above the double line (would put it 1st in the list I guess)

It belongs above the line, for sure. But can we control the order?

* general re-wording and making things read a bit better. E.g. If you don't know already, then "Row height" in the command prefs would mean absolutely nothing to you

Sounds good. I would move Row Height and Show children over to the Appearance pane, too.

-- 
Rob McBroom
<http://www.skurfer.com/>

[Howard Melman]

I like all of these. My only comment is that "load icons" and "load previews" used to be a source of significant slow downs. If they're faster now (because of software or hardware improvements) then great, otherwise it might be worth leaving them in.

Howard

On Mar 26, 2012, at 11:11 AM, Patrick Robertson wrote:

[Sean Zhu]

The left/right option for the icon in menu bar may be used be used by users with smaller screens, who cannot always see the entire right side of the menu bar when using applications that have a lot of menu items. in this sense, choosing 'left' gives the Quicksilver lowest priority over other apps' NSStatusItems, and choosing 'right' gives it the highest.

[Patrick Robertson]

> I like all of these. My only comment is that "load icons" and "load previews" used to be a source of significant slow downs. If they're faster now (because of software or hardware improvements) then great, otherwise it might be worth leaving them in.

Quite a while back, Henning made this process asynchronous, so it no longer locks up QS when trying to load icons. True, it can take some time to load icons for things like movies (my 4 1/2 year old bottom end Macbook struggles) but it since it's not chocking QS it doesn't really affect much.

> The left/right option for the icon in menu bar may be used be used by users with smaller screens, who cannot always see the entire right side of the menu bar when using applications that have a lot of menu items. in this sense, choosing 'left' gives the Quicksilver lowest priority over other apps' NSStatusItems, and choosing 'right' gives it the highest.

As Rob pointed out, since this option doesn't really work properly anyway, I think it's safe to remove it.

[Patrick Robertson]

One further question:

Do we need the little 'eye' type icon in the prefs displaying when item requires a relaunch of Quicksilver to be enabled? Surely if each item brings up a popup saying "Quicksilver needs to relaunch" then there's no point in the icon? It'll make things look less busy, and I plan on removing it...

[Howard Melman]

On Mar 31, 2012, at 2:05 PM, Patrick Robertson wrote:

Do we need the little 'eye' type icon in the prefs displaying when item requires a relaunch of Quicksilver to be enabled? Surely if each item brings up a popup saying "Quicksilver needs to relaunch" then there's no point in the icon? It'll make things look less busy, and I plan on removing it...

I much prefer the little icon to popups. I have on occasion not tried a new setting because I didn't want to restart QS (though that seems odd to me now). Also if I am changing several of these, I'd rather not have to deal with several popups. Actually, if I'm changing even one of them I'd rather not have to deal with popups.

Howard

[Patrick Robertson]

>>  * Remove the "alternative services key" option. does it work?

> What’s it supposed to do? That will have a big impact on my answer. :-)

It's supposed to replace the default ⌘⎋ key shortcut to use the get current selection service, but I just debugged it and it doesn't seem to work. Wouldn't be a huge task fixing it, but is it worth it?

[Rob McBroom]

On Apr 3, 2012, at 1:58 PM, Patrick Robertson wrote:

> It's supposed to replace the default ⌘⎋ key shortcut to use the get current selection service, but I just debugged it and it doesn't seem to work. Wouldn't be a huge task fixing it, but is it worth it?

Doesn’t sound like it. There’s an “official” way to reassign the keystroke for a service now anyway.

[Patrick Robertson]

I've made the changes, and here's some things I thought about along the way:

* I've kept in the check for updates "when" option due to Rob's comment about scheduled updates

* I have left the application update type in the 'extras' preference. It is an extra when I think about it: it doesn't really need to be seen by 'normal' users.

* I've added some headers to the sections in each pref pane to try and separate them a bit
* I've kept the results row height in the 'command' preferences as I think that it's better suited here than the appearance pane.

* I've added quite a few tool tips. They need looking over, possible re-wording if you don't think they'll make sense to new users (but that doesn't mean editing by committee!)

* I am undecided about the eye. I think that they clutter up the preferences more than they aid the user. Anyway, there has never been anything explaining what it actually means. It's left up to the user to decide. I plan on removing them all unless there's huge objection (Howard I've noted yours!)

* I've removed the ugly box at the bottom of the prefs pane. There's an issue on this (https://github.com/quicksilver/Quicksilver/issues/257)

* I'd like to change the name of the 'command' pane to 'search'. This is what the files are called in the source code, so I don't know why it's command.

The pull request can be seen here: https://github.com/quicksilver/Quicksilver/pull/788

For those who don't want to build this to see the changes, here are some pictures of them: http://d.pr/y2xz

[Howard Melman]

On Apr 4, 2012, at 4:16 PM, Patrick Robertson wrote:

* I'd like to change the name of the 'command' pane to 'search'. This is what the files are called in the source code, so I don't know why it's command.

I don't know the history of the name. Because "that's what the source calls it" isn't a good rationale to me. It should make sense to the user (and not just the developers). 

These prefs are about the keys used to activate and use QS as well as the behavior of the UI. While "command" isn't great at conveying that, I think "search" is worse. Command at least refers to "command window" which I think is the name of the UI that appears when you activate QS. I think most people will think search refers to search engines.

Howard

[Patrick Robertson]

> I don't know the history of the name. Because "that's what the source calls it" isn't a good rationale to me. It should make sense to the user (and not just the developers). 

Mentioning the source code wasn't meant to suggest that I think the name should be changed for this reason. It was just where I got the idea from.

Personally, 'command' has always confused me. The reason why I've never suggested changing it before is because I can't come up with anything better. I guess 'search' isn't really better as you say. Leaving it as is seems to be the 'acceptable' solution

[Rob McBroom]

On Apr 4, 2012, at 6:08 PM, Patrick Robertson wrote:

> I guess 'search' isn't really better as you say. Leaving it as is seems to be the 'acceptable' solution

I agree. I don’t like “search” either. I feel like it reenforces the misconception that you need to type entire words to locate/select things.

[Patrick Robertson]

Within my Pull request for this (over at https://github.com/quicksilver/Quicksilver/pull/788 ) I also updated some of the preferences icons (see https://github.com/pjrobertson/Quicksilver/commit/fe16cb01be4d6826378a339bb434ee44a91b0db9 )

I also think the 'plugins preference' icon is a bit outdated and unclear, so I tweeted a few days ago asking for users to submit a new re-design. We only got feedback from one user (attached). Does anybody object to us using the icon, or have any recommendations on how we could improve on the current icon?

Personally - it took a bit of getting used to (as with any visual changes to Quicksilver) but I think it's a bit clearer and more prominent. Possibly a bit too dark.

P.S. I've also attached a screenshot of the 'finished' prefs, and the attached icon is only 32px x 32px as that's all it needs to be

[Howard Melman]

I agree it's a bit too dark, other than that it looks good. I assume it will also be used for the section headings in the left pane.

Howard

[Patrick Robertson]

Yes indeed it could be. It would most likely replace the icons for a .qsplugin as well

[Scott Smith]

Here is the most recent iteration of my plugin icon design. 

[Lucas Garron]

What about something more like the QS icon itself?

http://archive.garron.us/img/2012/qs_plugin_icon_lg_v0.png

http://archive.garron.us/img/2012/qs_plugin_icon_lg_v0.svg

Also. the dimensions on the puzzle piece are *ridiculously* hard to get "natural"-looking. I'm nowhere near close.

»Lucas Garron

[Scott Smith]

That looks excellent, but all of the other icons should match if you were to do it that way. 

[Scott Smith]

So I have tweaked my design and worked on the gradient a bit more. I also made the puzzle piece more properly proportioned and therefore more visually appealing. 

[Rob McBroom]

On Apr 7, 2012, at 12:39 PM, Patrick Robertson wrote:

I also think the 'plugins preference' icon is a bit outdated and unclear

I think it’s fine. :-)

P.S. I've also attached a screenshot of the 'finished' prefs, and the attached icon is only 32px x 32px as that's all it needs to be

This icon is also used for .qsplugin bundles in Finder. Wouldn’t we need larger sizes for that?

[Scott Smith]

OK, sorry for the frequent changes, but I think I have finally made the best icon I can. I reversed the gradient and added a shadow to the puzzle piece. 

[Patrick Robertson]

I like your revised icons Scott.

I wasn't too sure about the black line round the jigsaw piece to start with, but when the icon's not big, it looks great.

Rob: I thought the icon needed a touch up and needed bringing into line with the new QS icon we have. Just a freshen up really.

[Scott Smith]

I can easily remove the border around the puzzle piece if you like. In fact here they are without the border, personally I think the border looks good when the icon is shown large and since it doesn't show up at smaller sizes, it looks good there too. 

[Scott Smith]

OK, I'm not sure if there is anything else that you would like for me to change. The release notes said that a new icon was "still being discussed," but I thought the discussion was sort of over. Anyway, I have tweaked things a little more, making the grey plug-in icon darker to give it more contrast in the menu bar. I also added a shadow under the purple plug-in icon because a drop shadow behind the icon did not show up as well. 

If you use this icon in Quicksilver, I will send you the .ai files so you can edit them as well. 

[Patrick Robertson]

I think these look great. Anybody have any objections to these being put in the repo?