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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    powerful tooltips,
From:       solo turn <soloturn99 () yahoo ! com>
Date:       2003-11-14 11:50:16
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currently there are discussions about:
- reducing available buttons in toolbars
	strategy: combine functionality, just remove things
- make buttons clearer
	strategy: add text, make buttons bigger, fewer buttons
	confuse less

these discussions are very promising, but imo a few things are not yet considered:

1. display and easy set (keyboard, speech?) shortcuts, extend tooltip
--------------
a button on a toolbar has a tooltip. a menu entry could have a tooltip, which is basically a
bubble/box opening when the mouse stays on an object. this tooltip should contain:
- a descriptive text, or other background
  information (the url behind it, ...)
- the assigned shortcut
- "edit shortcut" opens a kde or application specific
  component for assigning/editing the shortcut
- help

it wuold be great if there would be a possibility to go to the tooltip with the keyboard and also
leave it again via keyboard (esc, timeout, ?)


2. display buttons, menu entries depending on users behaviour
----------
microsoft uses this strategy to simplify menus. menus have to modes: "standard" and
"extended/full". clicking on a menu opens the standard menu with a minimal set of entries, and an
arrow icon. staying with the mouse on the arrow, or clicking the arrow opens the full menu.
choosing a menu entry includes it in the standard display the next time. not choosing it for a
long time removes it again from the standard display.

it would be great if kde could do this for menu entries, and toolbar buttons.


3. making gui control elements clearer (buttons, texts), not bigger
-----------
to make something clearer, it is not necessary or not always necessary to make it bigger (bigger
icon, longer text). i think a more precise icon (simpler?), a more precise text, and a good
tooltip are very helpful.

why? the most important thing on an application is the document area, the things around are just
helping to issue commands for doing something in the document area, so people like big document
areas. therefor screens get bigger and bigger and you can put more windows on it, and/or have
bigger document areas.

fitts law should not be "misused" to fill a bigger screen with bigger buttons (or bigger gui
control elements in general). microsoft did a good job, kde too did also up to now, gnome did a
bad job in this respect. a microsoft application on a 800x640 screen looks like a gnome
application on a 1280x1024 screen.

also a valid approach seems to ba a three mode way: display icon, display text, display both.


4. do not distinguish between menu bar, and tool bar
---------
a menu contains text, if you click on that text, a menu opens. a toolbar can contain icons with a
small arrow, clicking on that opens a menu of icons. both have tooltips, both have shortcuts. 
if you offer display modes "text/icon/both" there is no point in makeing that difference. the menu
bar is just a very important toolbar (i.e. default toolbar), in text mode. this would also make it
easy possible to place the menu bar, and e.g. the navigation bar side by side, and saving one line
on the screen (doing something useful with the wide gray space on the menu's right side).


do you think this would help making kde clearer and easier to use?

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