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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Fwd: [Bug 59940] New: Adoption of dotNET sytle and MKUltra
From:       Henrique Pinto <stampede () coltec ! ufmg ! br>
Date:       2003-06-18 1:23:24
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On Tuesday 17 June 2003 22:08, Levi Burton wrote:
> On Tuesday 17 June 2003 07:49 pm, Henrique Pinto wrote:
> [...]
>
> > Glow for windec, and dotNET for style. I, personally, do not like this
> > very much, but it was based on what users said. Maybe we should do more
>
> I have been using dotNET for quite some time now, and have done a little
> thinking about why I don't have an urge to change it.  Here are some
> thoughts:
>
> 1.  Simple.
> 2.  Fast.
> 3.  Menu item icons have a better visual cue by having the background color
> of the menu they occupy a different color from the background of the menu
> text.
>
> The last one is very important to me.  In other styles, my eye generally
> has to read from left to right, including the icons, which can confuse me. 
> With the visual distinction of dotNET style menus, I seem to find the menu
> item im looking for much faster.  There is a clear separation from the
> visual and textual cue, allowing me to use one (icon) or the other(text),
> and not have to mentally separate them (icon and text).

I have three problems with it:

1) The name: KDE should not use, by default, a theme that has a name somehow 
related to Microsoft.

2) KMenu: it looks really odd to have three different "colors", the sidebar, 
the icon bar and the menu itself.

3) Icons on buttons: they just don't work as expected (unless you expect text 
to be over them).

If these three problems are solved, I'll totally agree on making it the 
default KDE theme. Myself, I don't think I'll change my style now (I'm using 
QinxFlat).

Maybe the "iconbar" different color should be configurable...

For the windec, I have no objection on keeping Keramik. MKUltra goes better 
with simpler themes, like QinxFlat and dotNET, but, depending on your color 
scheme, the buttons are really hard to see.

Anyway, I don't think things such as these issues should be decided without 
great usability researchs first. Defaults are not really that important for 
advanced users. When setting them, we should have in mind those users who use 
the computer to browse the new and read mail, not developers. Hearing this 
kind of user is then a must. At my school, we choose dotNET, even if I really 
wanted Qinx to be chosen, because users seemed to like it better. We should 
do this world-wide before the decision, otherwise each KDE release will have 
a different style as default.

-- 
	Henrique Pinto
	stampede@coltec.ufmg.br

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