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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    file dialog section of eugenia's article
From:       "Aaron J. Seigo" <aseigo () olympusproject ! org>
Date:       2002-07-12 0:07:02
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ok.. file dialog suggestiosn from Eugenia's article ....

==============
I believe that the biggest problem in this dialog, and a bit laughable from a 
UI point of view, is the redundancy of the "Home Directory". In this dialog, 
it is accessible from three different locations as you can see from the 
screenshot. 
==============

*sigh* after this i'm an seriously this >< close to removing the home icon on 
the toolbar and the rmb menu ... i think that if people want quick links, use 
the quick link bar. it is also on by default. the toolbar home predates the 
quick links and only adds to the clutter ... 

somebody stop me otherwise they may soon be gone ;-)

===============
Also, KDE should take more initiative and add more "Favorite" places along wth 
the "Documents," "Temporary Files," places: My Music, My Downloads and other 
options as found appropriate. 
================

and where would we point them to in the file system?
my music directory happens to be /home/music ....
my downloads usually go to /home/aaron/src .... (guess what i'm usually 
downloading? ;-)

the problem isn't so much that we can't or wouldn't set up some useful links, 
but rather tha we don't have anywhere standard to point them to. i hope 
you'll agree with me that having dead links would be worse than no links.

==================
The Encoding Selection should be under the "Extras". 
==================

the encoding selection is added by the application, it isn't part of 
kfiledialog itself. there is work underway to allow proper adding of such a 
widget, however. 

==================
The "Detailed/Short View" should be under Extras/View as well.
 The Preview does not work if one has selected "Separate Directories" from the 
Extras/View menu. This needs fixing.
==================

these items have been fixed in CVS for a few weeks now =) 

==================
 The Favorites MS Outlook-like bar on the left, need to have a little button 
like Mozilla has, that it will allow it to autocollapse. 
==================

this will require some work in Qt as Waldo pointed out ... i won't get to this 
before 3.1, but maybe someone else might ...

==================
The "Preview" button should go on the left or not be there at all.
=================

 it's in the configure menu now (which used to be the extras menu) ... we seem 
to have some similar thoughts on these matters =)

==============
 A Preview should appear immediately after one has checked the "Automatic 
Preview" checkbox. 
==============

it does, at least running from CVS ....

==============
The Preview button is redundant there, and in fact, it confuses the user as it 
does not even align correctly with the "OK" and "Cancel" buttons underneath 
it. 
==============

i'll agree that it is ugly in its current position, but how is it redundant? 
if you don't have automatic preview selected, how does the preview show up? 
or if you wish to refresh the preview when auto is selected, how do you do 
that?

(i've done both in regular usage)

==========
The context menu inside the dialog is really poorly designed. When someone has 
selected some files or directories inside the open/save dialog, almost the 
same context menu as the one described above for the desktop icons should 
apply. Instead, what we see here is a mix of options that apply to selected 
files and to actions that should be done when no files are selected (eg. 
Back, Parent Directory, Sorting etc). There should be two kinds of context 
menus there, one for selected files/folders and one for when nothing is 
selected. Currently everything is in a mix, and nothing is obvious. From 
usability point of view, this needs fixing ASAP. 
============

and how do you explain to a user that they can't select the back/forward/etc 
selections from the menu when they have something selected? this would be 
particularly bad when you use the detalied view since how to deselect an item 
isn't exactly obvious for most.

no, menus that magically change depending on the phase of the moon would be 
horrific. forget about learnability or unsurprising.

also bear in mind that the RMB is an advanced feature. it can be a bit more 
learning-curve-heavy if that's the best way to offer the functionality users 
desire. since the RMB menu itself is static, it is quite learnable. it might 
not be immediately obvious the first time someone uses it, but it can be 
learned and muscle-memorized quite nicely to provide the user with more 
functionality.

a user only uses an interface for the first time once. it's our goal to make 
that first time comfortable, but it is also our responsibility to make the 
rest of their usage powerful and comfortable.

- -- 
Aaron J. Seigo
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler"
    - Albert Einstein
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