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List:       kde-bugs-dist
Subject:    [Bug 53682] usability: toolbar layout and buttons
From:       Neil Stevens <neil () qualityassistant ! com>
Date:       2003-01-31 6:03:37
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http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=53682     




------- Additional Comments From neil@qualityassistant.com  2003-01-31 07:03 -------
Subject: Re:  New: usability: toolbar layout and buttons

Since you brought it up again, I just decided to reply now. :-)

On Thursday January 30, 2003 10:26, William Leese wrote:
> My Oh My! How this (default) GUI (/skin) needs some TLC.

No, Kaboodle is a real user interface.  I won't have a part of 'skins',  I 
like KDE for its goal of user interface consistency and I regularly mock 
the horrid unusability of 'skins.' :-)

> Starting with the menu's. Taking a look at the "Edit" menu reveals not a
> single entry that has anything to do with editing. I suggest using
> "View" instead.

Well, there's at least one: Properties.  Properties is editable.  And the 
bulk of edit *has* no standard menu place.  "Play" doesn't really fit 
anywhere, so I figure edit is as good as any place.

> Toolbars. The quit button needs to go because users do not expect it
> there. More importantly the well known big "X" and File->Quit methods
> are available for quiting the application.

You sure?  What about the people who hide menu bars? (see below)

> Another oddity is the "Show/hide menubar" button. This is also
> unexpected. How many people would want to remove the menubar when not in
> fullscreen mode? If you want to retain this feature I'd suggest allowing
> it to be activated through the suggested "View" menu and dynamically
> adding/removing it from the "Video Toolbar"

It may not be unexpected to you, but it's certainly nice for those users 
who accidentally hide the menubar.  Kaboodle is better where Konqueror 
fails: making the menu bar easy to bring back.  Do you do user support?  
How to bring back a hidden menu is a common user question.

And no, the asnwer isn't to make the menu bar required to be present.  I 
*have* had requests for the toggle, and in fact I've come to use it myself 
in Noatun Excellent.  So it's staying.

And the answer isn't to dynamically hide and remove GUI elements.  Making 
it so that the user doesn't know what will be in the toolbar when just 
makes things harder on the user.

> The slider toolbar and general toolbar should be grouped together and
> not be seperated by the movie thats playing. This is because users who
> are mucking around with the navigational controls are also likely to
> want to touch the navigation bar.

Slider isn't a toolbar, but you make a good case for video widget moving 
below the slider.

> The statusbar needs to be visibly seperated from other toolbars to
> indicate it's presence. Also of great help would be a default status
> message when no movie has been opened such as "No movie opened.".

Statusbar look is controlled by kdelibs and your widget style, not by 
kaboodle.

And kaboodle is not just a movie player.

> The timer font is rather large. You might want to consider using the
> default font instead and increasing the size of the navigation bar
> proportionally.

I could do that, but why is it bad to be large?  It's one of the very most 
important things in the whole app.. the one bit of status information.

> Final suggestion: consolidate "Video Toolbar" and "Kaboodle Toolbar". No
> need for a toolbar with only a single button.

Technically impractical.  Video settings are controlled not by 
kaboodlepart, but rather by KVideoWidget in libartskde.

For me to hide the KVideoWidget ones and add new ones in Kaboodle would be 
a bug-prone duplication of UI.

Also, in the future, please make separate reports for separate issues, for 
easier tracking of what's fixed, and to allow me to transfer other reports 
to other products (like your dislike for the Show Menubar menu position).
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