gtk software manager clutter
Ricardo Cruz
If you have some ideas about the software manager UI overall, it would
be great to feed us with them. ;)
I think the UI is a bit cluttered. Not terribly so, but it would be cool
if we had less stuff there.
Does e.g. the categories stuff deserve such a big space? Should it be
visible at all by default? etc...
I think you already mentioned, you'd align the search box to the left,
for proximity. That's not what other distribution apps do (e.g. think of
RhythmBox, Banshee), but those are not as search-intensive as a software
manager is.
Other than that, maybe get rid of the "_Find:" label, and instead have
some "Tools > Find [Control+F]" shortcut?
What do you feel about the bottom-left
Available/Installed/Upgrades/Modified filter?
Thanks,
Ricardo
Ricardo Cruz
Seg, 2011-04-18 às 09:37 +0200, Maciej Pilichowski escreveu:
> Honestly I didn't spend any time thinking about it
We like first impressions. It means your opinion isn't tainted from
recurrent use. ;)
> > Does e.g. the categories stuff deserve such a big space? Should it be
> > visible at all by default? etc...
>
> No and no. Besides, current UI does not allow multiple choice. It could
> be the third element in the "find" section.
>
> Find ________ by [ name v] in [ 2 categories v ]
What do you mean by allowing multiple choice?
You should be able to select more than one category (by holding Ctrl),
but that's not particularly useful, so a combo-box works fine too.
In fact, we ran a mockup like that. (We tried a bunch of stuff. :))
I like it, but the devil is in the details. In particular, where do you
show repositories, patterns and the other info?
Not sure we want to embed all the information into that thing. Maybe
showing that info on-demand -- a toggle-button or menu-item coupled with
a side-bar would be an easy implementation.
Anyhow, it bothers me we'd make too much intensive use of the vertical
space relative to the horizontal space. Not sure the imbalance would
look good. But we could think through something along those lines, and
give it a try.
By the way, I always liked the idea of showing the details box to the
right of the packages-list. I am used to that layout, because I use a
notebook and have configured a few applications to work that way, but it
would probably look too shocking for most people.
> > I think you already mentioned, you'd align the search box to the left,
> > for proximity. That's not what other distribution apps do
>
> Don't think that way, the fact the other apps do the bad job is a reason
> you should do bad too?
>
> Productivity, usability, and so on -- this only matters.
I think you'd agree that familiarity/uniformity matters too, which was
what I was getting at. Like I said, in this case, the benefits probably
outweight the negative point of breaking with user's expectation. And I
don't think this kind of presentation is used much, so there isn't much
of an expectation to break. But I thought of mentioning it.
What bothers me more is my point about the label. One of the guys, who
helped with the design, insisted we keep a label next to the
packages-list, for keyboard navigation. Not sure how it would work out
with the search-entry to the left: and the thought of wasting one line
with a label doesn't please me either. :)
> > Other than that, maybe get rid of the "_Find:" label, and instead have
> > some "Tools> Find [Control+F]" shortcut?
>
> Oh, now -- things should be as simple as possible, but not simpler. User
> has to see explicitly possible actions, not guess them.
eheh. That's the approach of Firefox. Most applications don't even
bother having a menu-shortcut for the find entry. In our case, it's
probably used enough to warrant it.
> > What do you feel about the bottom-left
> > Available/Installed/Upgrades/Modified filter?
>
> For removal. It should be a filter in "View" menu.
Not many yast2 tools have a menu-bar, and we designed the UI without the
menu-bar in mind. The menu-bar was added for uniformity with the Qt UI.
But we could integrate it in the design, and make heavier use of it --
in which case, we probably want to get rid of the white banner, right?
> The same goes with Undo at the bottom of the window. This is completely
> weird. It should be a part of "Edit" menu (consistency matters) and
> (additionally, optionally) button in toolbar.
We call it the status line. The idea is not so much to let the user
rapidly revert the last change, but to provide an immediate and visible
feedback to his actions.
Like I discussed, I can see how it could be confusing, and I suggested
Atri, as a compromise, showing a label saying stuff like "5 packages to
install (+46 Mb), 2 to remove". And have a link to the summary window.
Thanks,
Ricardo