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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: default panel set up - website
From:       Uno Engborg <uno () webworks ! se>
Date:       2002-07-26 0:15:45
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Matt Bonyak wrote:

>On Thursday 25 July 2002 12:41 pm, Uno Engborg wrote:
>  
>
>>The hide button isn't really needed as most users will turn on auto hide
>>anyway.
>>    
>>
>
>I highly doubt this.  Maybe many "power users," including yourself, do hide 
>the bar, but Joe Schmoe KDE newbie (for whom the default is most intended, 
>correct?) is less inclined to auto-hide, even if he did know how.  It really 
>is a minority of users that prefer to enable this feature.  But either way, 
>the hide buttons are a useful sacrifice that more users probably use than 
>auto-hide.
>
Actually it doesn't really matter if the "regular user" turns on 
autohide or the hide arrow
once he is past his "newbie user" stage. The controls are in the same 
place in the
"Control Center".

>
>  
>
>>But auto hide can't be on by default as new users might not even find
>>the panel
>>that way.
>>    
>>
>
>Correct.  Given that, isn't your previous point moot?  I mean, if defaultly, 
>you don't want to use the auto-hide, but you also don't want hide buttons 
>because you assume people will enable auto-hide...  Isn't this contradictory?
>  
>

If we are talking of newbies I am not entierely certain that the panel 
should be hidable
at all. If they hide the panel by mistake, I'm not so sure that they 
will find the relatively small
unhide button.  The panel would also look a bit cleaner, and all arrows 
on the panel would
have the same meaning  i.e. menu anchoring points.

The hide arrow could also be confused with a scroll control, and the 
user might click it
in the assumption that there was more buttons and applets on the panel 
that there was
no room for on the screen. When the user clicks the arrow, the panel 
disappears instead
of showing more icons. And we have a confused user.

Besides how many users have a screen that is so small that KDE isn't 
runnable without
hiding the panel? Here in Sweden I havent seen somthing less than 
1024x768 for years,
even if I include laptops.


Regards
Uno Engborg



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