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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: KPilot's config dialogs & usability
From:       Adriaan de Groot <adridg () sci ! kun ! nl>
Date:       2001-09-06 8:12:30
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David, I'd like to thank you for your two long and well-reasoned
responses.

On Wed, 5 Sep 2001, David Bishop wrote:
> 2.  When the device is USB, "Speed" should be disabled.

I can't really tell when a device is usb, unless I can make some
unwarranted assumption like "USB device nodes have usb in their name". But
you're right, the speed there is irrelevant. [You know, I almost went out
and bought a Visor yesterday just to test this stuff.]

> 3.  Should Daemon be capitalized?  Not sure...
> 4.  Is it more common to call kicker "Kicker" or "the panel"?  Long time kde
> user (a coworker) looked at me blankly yesterday when I refered to "kicker".

This kind of capitalization issues has been around for a long time.
Getting it right is tough (before it said kicker, it said whatever the
thing was called in KDE 1.1.2, which was even more confusing).

> 5.  Under DB Specials, a short explanation of what "Arng, PmDB, Inch" are
> would be helpful.

It's in the documentation, but nobody reads that, right?

> 6.  This probably isn't a usability bug, but how would KPilot know if you
> changed PC's?? That's just odd.

The Pilot holds some kind of serial number of the PC it last synced with
(don't ask me how) so you can tell if the Pilot synced with someone else.
This is well-described in the O'Reilly Palm Programming book -- there's a
reason for it and it works, too.

> 7.  Personal Opinion:  Sync Files should be checked by default.

You're right.

> 8.  I was about to go off on some other things, but realized that my
> complaints boiled down to:  please add mouse-over pop-up hints as to what
> config options do.  For instance, what *is* FastSync vs. HotSync??  Is there

Well, once I sent off the test app I stayed up till 1am adding QToolTips
to everything. Unfortunately, I don't understand what some of the options
do, so some tooltips say "I have no idea". Those options will be removed
once I trace down where in the code they are used (maybe then I'll
understand them and not remove them).


> > The conduit configuration is a tree with two branches. One branch contains
> > active conduits, the other avaialable conduits. You can drag stuff from one
> > to the other. Does *this* make sense? Is it usable? (I just noticed there's
> > not much visual feedback while dragging, so it's probably suboptimal).
>
> More visual feedback would be great while dragging.  Although *I've* gotten
> used to it lately, I remember when I first started up kpilot, it took me a
> few minutes to realize that you /had/ to d&d from one to the other.  I kept
> searching for an "add" button or "make active".  I also searched around in
> the individual conduit config dialogs, which I discovered by accident.  Which

Aha. This makes sense.

> Well, of course this whole email should be wrapped in <IMHO></IMHO> tags, but
> I hope that I've at least prompted some rethinking.  I'm an ardent fan of
> what KPilot could be, and am loving the opportunity to help get it there.

Well, I'm mighty glad to receive a HO every now and then, because it gives
me something to fiddle with, and will improve KPilot in the long run
(though not for 2.2.1 release -- I'm going to do some separate KDE 2
releases when kpilot is patched up more).

-- 
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Adriaan de Groot -- KPilot 4.0 (for KDE 2.x) maintainer
http://www.cs.kun.nl/~adridg/kpilot/

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