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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Re: "UP" Browsing Button
From:       Dave Leigh <dave.leigh () cratchit ! org>
Date:       2002-10-06 3:00:28
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On Saturday 05 October 2002 15:36, Henry Stanaland wrote:
> Recently I had a friend(who I've had with Mandrake for a while) who
> normally uses Netscape.  I tried to get her to use Konqueror and the
> very first thing she said was "Why is there an up button...I've never
> seen an up button?"

The obvious answer is, "Of COURSE you have! There's one in Explorer, but you 
only see it when you're looking at your local directories. Konqueror is more 
consistent about things. The up button takes you up a directory, just like in 
Explorer."

> But I didn't have a suggestion for making this UP arrow seem more normal,
> other than only putting it in the file manager profiles, but not the
> browser profile.  Doesn't seem like a great idea, since some people
> casually switch between both.  So I just put it in the back of my mind. 
> But recently I tried Lycoris for a couple of days and I think they had a
> rather good fix by distinguishing the UP arrow graphically.
>
> In addition to prostituting myself to Lycoris, I did the same with Gnome2
> for a couple of days and realized Nautilus has the LEFT and RIGHT arrows
> before the UP arrow.  I think this is a good solution too because currently
> the UP arrow has THE best place in the toolbar, yet the BACK arrow is the
> most widely used(for web browsing anyways).
>
> What do you guys think about this?  Is it negligible or would giving the UP
> arrow less prominence make Window's users feel more comfortable.

I think it's a mistake to take it out of the browser profile. You're removing 
very useful functionality at the cost of consistency. 

Personally, I use the up button quite a lot. It's an improvement over MSIE I 
think, because it's far more consistent. New MSIE users have to discover that 
certain functions appear or disappear when they're simply looking at 
different locations; whereas new Konqueror users can take it for granted that 
the controls work the same whether you're looking at a local directory or a 
website.

I'm not even convinced that it has "THE" best place on the toolbar. I also 
like Opera quite a bit, and it puts those buttons closer to the center of the 
toobar, which makes for a lot less mouse travel when the sidebar is open. 



-- 
Dave Leigh, Consulting Systems Analyst
Cratchit.org
  http://www.cratchit.org
  864-427-7008 (direct)
  AIM or Yahoo!: leighdf
  MSN: leighdf29379@hotmail.com
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What's done to children, they will do to society.

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