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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Sliders and spinboxes.
From:       Esben Mose Hansen <kde () mosehansen ! dk>
Date:       2004-12-15 21:53:07
Message-ID: 200412152251.57777.kde () mosehansen ! dk
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Hi,

I seem to have a problem. I maintain a program which have a configuration 
control consisting of the classic slider + KIntSpinBox, kept in sync. The 
range of the thing used to be 2--25, but I have made the application support 
larger values, which in effect changed the range to 2--2048. The 2048 is 
totally abitirary and choosen to be large enough to accomodate anyone without 
being insanely large. 

This change was flagged as usability regression by someone who claims to be an 
expert in such matters. He tells me to change the slider so that it can no 
longer be changed to a value above 30 or so, and leave the KNumSpinBox as the 
sole means of adjusting in the upper range. I offered to remove the slider 
alltogether, which was not accepted. I think he partly bases this on a 
assumption that most users would prefer a low number. In practical experience 
from a program offering the same control, people who used the control usually 
cranked it to the max, which was 255, so I'm disregarding this as habit.

Now, I *intensely* dislike his solution, and would like to know whether I'm 
crazy or right.  Here's my arguments in favor for not implementing his 
suggestion:

1. From this list, using the combination of slider/spinbox is /intended/ for 
large ranges, see http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-usability&m=105863851021142&w=2

2. Lots of KDE applications use sliders with large ranges --- just browse 
through the control center for examples.  A few applications (e.g. history 
size in Konsole) chooses to not have a slider at all.

3. I have been unable to find any KDE application that implements his 
solution, which would leave my application inconsistent with the rest of KDE. 

4. The applications GUI would also be internally inconsistent with itself, as 
two controls for the same parameter are no longer equal

5. The applications GUI has lost discoverability. I don't think many would try 
to change the spinbox beyong the range of the slider unless instructed or 
specifically looking for it. 

Please, I would really appreciate it if you tell me what you think about this. 

The bug in question is here: 
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=94388

Again, thanks for you thoughts. 

-- 
regards. Esben
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