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List:       kmail-devel
Subject:    Re: [RFC][PATCH] new font and colour configuration widget.
From:       Marc Mutz <Marc.Mutz () uni-bielefeld ! de>
Date:       2001-05-29 9:02:53
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Ok, I have "fight" again ;-)

The basic idea behind this widget was to present the current font and 
color configuration to the user in a way that makes it possible for him 
to digest from it the look of, e.g., the message display. The second 
idea was to make a widget that uses less space.

More detailed arguments follow:

On Tuesday 29 May 2001 09:35, Michael Häckel wrote:
<snip>
> In general I'm happy with the current font and colour configuration.
>

I find it very un-intuitive, here's why:

The color and font configuration belong together, but they are not. 
What's worse: They use an completely different approach. The color 
configuration is much like what I've hacked up now, but the font config 
is totally different. Plus: you cannot see how color and font, or 
different fonts, look together, since you always have to switch tabs or 
items in a combobox. 

> Merging them means also that for a few entries it is only possible to
> either specify the font or the colour. A background font doesn't make
> really sense for example.

One could add an empty item that acts as "the background" or one could 
make right-clicks into the area not used by the text entries present 
the option to select the background. This would lead to another 
advantage: You can see how the font colors and the bg color look 
together, if you set the listbox's background to the selected color.


> Also with your coloured entries you have the problem, that it some
> entries might sometimes be invisible. For example for normal text I
> currently see brown text on brown background, when I select it.
<snip>

That seems to be a bug in the widget style, then?

> The right click is also a fairly hidden feature

Nothing a well-placed QLabel cannot "fix" :-)

> and it should also be
> possible to configure everything with the keyboard only.

Connect SIGNAL(returnPressed(...)) to SLOT(slopPopup()) ?
Which hotkey usually brings up a context menu? E.g. in Konqueror?
A QListBox has a fairly decent keyboard navigation mechanism.

The idea is to make a single tab "Fonts & Colors" under "Appearance" in 
the configuration dialog and place three of these (or QListView-derived 
equivalents) widgets into it - one for the message pane, one for the 
message list and maybe one for the folder list (The folder list would 
make sense only if there was actually a bit more to configure. I'm 
thinking of per-folder icons and colors for folders containig new mail 
or important mail as well as system/user folders,.e.g.)

Marc

-- 
Marc Mutz <Marc@Mutz.com>
http://marc.mutz.com/
http://www.mathematik.uni-bielefeld.de/~mmutz/
http://EncryptionHOWTO.sourceforge.net/
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