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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: KFileDialog toolbar
From:       Troels Tolstrup <troels () tolstrup ! org>
Date:       2002-06-30 17:48:14
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On Sunday 30 June 2002 04:54, Irwin K wrote:
> I've assembled pictures of existing "Open File" dialog boxes from
> various locations.
>
> The page puts all of the pictures inline, so please excuse the
> transfer times... I did the page as a quick hack.
>
> http://yetta.net/~arcana/kde/openfile
>
> As you can see, KDE doesn't necessarily have the most complex dialogs
> (or the simplest).  Make sure you look at the Windows dialogs: they
> embody most of the features that we are discussing the placement of
> and can give us some ideas of how they placed a lot of items into
> very few buttons.

Of the shown dialogs i dont really like the gimp or the mozilla ones. 
They look and feel too much like something from the 80s. Of course the 
look is not all that important, and i also have other problems with 
those two, but i think discussing them is irrelevant here.

Of all the dialogs, including the kde one, i prefer the open office one. 
It is simple, it is nicely layed out, and except for sorting, i can 
easily guess how to do things. Which lead me to the next thing, is 
sorting a power user feature? Now that i think about it i havent 
actually ever seen anyone try to sort the list in a file dialog. I have 
often seen people sort a file manager window, but not a file dialog. If 
this is true, and not just a case of bad memory or strange friends, 
then i think it makes sense to put the sort option in the RMB context 
menu.

The only options i think should be added to the open office dialog 
really would be a show hidden files checkbox and the bookmark menu, and 
possibly a forward button.

The microsoft one is not too bad either. I dont know if i like the way 
the tool menu is written with text while the rest is icons, but else 
this dialog is pretty close to being an open office dialog with a 
preview area (or to be fair, open offices dialog is close to being a ms 
office dialog without a prewiew area)

I think corel draws is interesting in that they added a menu bar in 
addition to the tool bar. I think the dialog looks good, but it is on 
the heavy side with toolbar buttons, but in case the options are 
matched in the menus then i dont think it matters too much. The one 
thing i like about the added menu bar is that people who generally use 
the menu bars instead of toolbars would feel more home in it. I do 
think a lot of things could be removed from it.

And then we have kdes. It looks pretty much like microsofts and open 
office's, yet not as elegant or simple. One small thing is that i think 
it looks a bit messy that the location field isnt aligned with the file 
selection box. I think this was done because whoever made it judged 
that the toolbar buttons were more important than the location bar, 
which i dont really agree with as i think the contents of the location 
bar is quite important.

But at least im happy that it is small things (IMHO) that really 
differentiate the different dialogs. Only corels is really much 
different. I think most of us agree that the current dialog needs some 
work, though it doesnt seem like we agree much as to how it should be 
done (at least aaron and i seems to be seeing things differently, which 
is probably a good thing :) I would personally like to see something as 
clean and simple as the open office one, while still preserving the 
options not displayed on the buttons.

Mvh
Troels
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