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List:       kde-pim
Subject:    Re: [Kde-pim] KAddressBook GUI design issues
From:       "Mirko Boehm" <mirco.boehm () comcast ! net>
Date:       2002-10-01 13:14:02
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<Zitiere wer="Cornelius Schumacher">
> On Monday 30 September 2002 21:59, Anders Lund wrote:
>> * It does not display all its controls correctly if the kaddressbook
>> window hasn't got quite a size. It should claim the space it requires
>> to display correctly, or alternatively provide optional scrollbars
>> like kcm modules, though that is not really a good solution.
>
> Hmm, I can't reproduce any problem with misdisplayed controls. The quick
>  does claim enough space to display correct.
Anders is right.

I do not know what GUI style and fonts you guys use, but I use either a 19
or a 21 inch display and the quickedit most of the time does simply not
display all its contents, nor does it use scrollbars (due to the layout
management used).

I posted a message some time ago stating that quickedit is basically not
usable at 800x600 or below, even with a maximized kaddressbook. Or as a
dialog.
>
>> * Nested tab widgets is downright bad GUI design. (Go here if you
>> forgot why: http://www.iarchitect.com/mshame.htm) If the quickedit and
>> the dist list manager should be displayed within the same widget, we
>> should come up with an alternative control - possibly the tab bar used
>> for Kate tool views could be used, placed in the bottom of the window
>> (the same control is used in the konqueror navigation bar - so it
>> probably will become familliar to users).
I absolutely agree. The double tab bar is a result of the development
process :-)

My intention was to modify it to be a details view. Tobias stated that he
does not like the idea of detail view implementations that allow the user
to modify the selected addressee, but I do like it. In fact, since most
displays provide a larger width than height, this should solve the size
problems, too, with a little layout work in quickedit.
>
> The nested tabs as they are now are horrible. We can't release
> KAddressBook before fixing this problem. Several additional
> alternatives come to my mind:
> - Use bottom tabs for the feature bar tab, that gives a slightly better
> impression, but doesn't change very much.
Bottom tabs seem to be no solution to me, sorry. I consider it acceptable
in situation where there is no other choice, but for me it is just as bad
taste.
>> * I miss the option to display the dist list manager in the form of a
>> dialog, as I dislike it embedded in the window in the current form by
>> taste. As for the addressee editor, a dialog form should have
>> keyboard accellerators while an embedded view none.
>
> We really should provide the distributon list editor also as dialog. The
>  embedded version is really cool, because of the drag&drop feature, but
> there is no reason why a dialog based version couldn't do the same and
> the embedded version could also provide the controls for selecting an
> addresse from a list.
This is obviously a matter of taste, because if found the dialog based
solution unusable. Since there are people who like a dialog and some who
not, we can provide both options easily.
>
> Conclusion: the embedded version and the dialog version should be based
> on the same code.
Agreed.
>
>> And some suggestions:

>> * Since we allready has such tool views, maybe adding a "manage by
>> categories" view would be good, pretty much like the dist list
>> editor, so that you could create a category and drag contacts to it
>> from the main view (Just agree, I'll volunteer to create it in time
>> for 3.2 if you do).
>
> Agreed ;-)
This is in fact intended use and has only been delayed for 3.1.
>
>> Some notes about the details pane:
>>
>> * It is not working well GUI-wise when displayed in a vertical pane,
>> because it does not have an understanding of the width it requires. It
>> should consider the required width and either provide scrollbars or
>> claim the space it needs, preferably the first since the width will
>> depend on the amount and length of the data in individual
>> contacts.
>
> It doesn't seem to provide a minimum width. That's a bug.
Remembering the reason ... it is because there is no generic minumim
width. It is either undefined or wrong :-) The solution could be to just
set some kind of minimum width and use scrollbars.
>
> What do I have to do to make the "Select Background" submenus to be
> enabled?
This is a bug I am trying to fix. I like to point it to the KDE wallpaper
dir, but I did not find a nice way to pick a background. It would be nice
to have something similar as the icon picker dialog. Otherwise, I just
make it open an "Open file..." dialog pointing to the wallpaper dir.

Except that, background wallpaper selection should work fine. You just
can't select one now :-)
>
> By the way, the details view comes up with unusable font settings for
> me. They are just too small to be readable. As I couldn't find a way to
> configure the fonts, I wonder how this is supposed to work.
This is strange, because it uses the KDE standard fonts by default. I
definitly have to port the font selection dialog from the print style to
the details page (because the underlying painter code is the same).
>
>> (I'm not sure if a [k]html view wouldn't do a much better job, using a
>> such would also enable really flexible templates for advanced
>> users. It has scrollbars/geometry management and supoorts
>> selecting/copying)
>
> KHTML might be a bit heavy, but a QTextView could also be very useful to
>  provide rich-text formatting.
I tried KHTML, and it did not feel well. When you switched through entries
 fast it was not able render anything. QTextView would be nice. On the
other hand, it is rather limited, too. But we can have a QTextVeiw based
details style to be chosen by the user.

This is the advantage of having different styles that can be developed by
different people - we can provide solutions for different taste.

--Mirko.


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