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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: "Baloon" help
From:       "Gordon Tyler" <gordon () doxxx ! net>
Date:       2002-06-10 18:57:04
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Troels Tolstrup" <troels@tolstrup.org>
To: <kde-usability@mail.kde.org>

> Though i do now and i made a slightly better looking baloon, but im no
> artist so it is still quite ugly :)

Apparentl, there already is a KPassivePopup (although I don't know what it
looks like) in the KDE source but not in kdeui.

> This example also adds the program name to it, as well as the program
> icon and 3 buttons, help, disable, and close. dont mind the artwork, im
> a programmer, not an artist :)

It does look better. 8)

> I think that it is dangerous to close it by clicking on it if it does
> contain special buttons. My reasoning is that it would be too easy to
> miss the help button and hence close it by accident

I think that the most common action a user would want to do is dismiss the
tooltip so that should be made the easiest by clicking anywhere in the
tooltip.

Also, these tooltips should be purely informational. Any critical
information that must not be easily lost should be displayed by a proper
dialog.

Perhaps the ? icon could be changed to a hyperlinked phrase at the bottom of
the tooltip, "Click here for more information"

> I think automatically turning things like this off is a bad practice. I

How about this: If the user clicks to dismiss the popup, then it should be
turned off. If they don't dismiss it and it just times out, then it should
not be turned off.

> instead think they should be able to be turned off directly from the
> baloon itself. Possibly by adding 3 small buttons, where the turn off

Too many buttons and it becomes a rather complex and intimidating tooltip.
The point about tooltips is that they're simpler and less intrusive than
full dialogs.

Simple is the key here.

> And i think a standard way of turning them off directly from the baloon
> is better than configuring it in the program itself. Im not saying that
> it shouldnt be configurable inside the program, it should be, in case
> you want to turn it on again, but i dont think the user should have to
> go through the configuration in order to turn it off.

What if the ? icon or "click here for more info" link were to show the
configuration dialog for the tooltip? Then if the user wanted full help for
it, they click the Help button on that dialog.

> And im also not 100% sure if there should be a global switch to turn
> them all off.

Hmm... I'm not sure about this one as well. It adds some programming
complexity behind the scenes and I don't know if it's really that useful?

> > Yes! I'm currently unhappy with KMail's new mail notification.
>
> Me too, which is why i hurried to turn it off. It is quite annoying.

I don't mind the beep. But if I have my speakers off, or I'm not at my desk,
I have to go specifically check in KMail's window if I have new mail. As
others have mentioend in this thread, there is a patch floating around which
does a Kicker tray thing which is what I want.

Ciao,
Gordon


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