unity-design team mailing list archive

[Luke Morton <luke.morton@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 2010-05-17 at 21:50 -0700, Tyler Brainerd wrote:
> BTW, using gcalc as the example again, tooltips give the available key
> shortcut. is this a good approach to discover-ability?

That could work. It would require a change to GTK+ to allow tooltips to
show on focus.

As an extension to that, if toolbuttons/toolmenus had groups with labels
like in Mac OS X then the labels could have accelerators, and each
toolbutton could have its own accelerator that shows as a tooltip. Again
this would require changes to GTK+.

> On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 9:37 PM, Luke Morton
> <luke.morton@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>         On Mon, 2010-05-17 at 20:38 -0700, Tyler Brainerd wrote:
>         > Actually, I added a (extremely rough) mock up of what gcalc
>         might look
>         > like. Basically, the most commonly used options ought to be
>         > (categorically) available the easiest.
>         
>         
>         I agree, although determining what's most commonly used is
>         easier said
>         than done--it depends heavily on the user's habits and their
>         particular
>         needs. 
>         
>         > In a tool like a calculator that doesn't have a lot going on
>         as far as
>         > options its pretty easy to put these on a row of mode or
>         view buttons.
>         > everything else can be found in the 'gearbox' options menu.
>         Roughly
>         
>         > like so:Calculator_027.jpg
>         
>         How would I access that with my keyboard? 
>         
>         > This translates very well in simple apps, and with more
>         work, could
>         > work well for more complex apps as well.
>         > With the keyboard shortcuts, particularly the insert
>         command,
>         > ironically enough I'm using chromium, which does not allow
>         for that
>         > command.
>         
>         
>         The point of accessing the Insert menu (in Evolution) was to
>         illustrate
>         the discoverability of a feature without having to know its
>         accelerator
>         key ahead of time. 
>         
>         > Presumably we could still allow similar behavior for common
>         key
>         > presses of that sort,
>         
>         
>         I would expect items in the toolbar to have
>         accelerators--especially in
>         the absence of a menu. But how would I know what they were?
>         And even if
>         they were standardised (say the cog icon is in your example is
>         accessible via Alt+S), how would I know what they were? 
>         
>         > and honestly some of it will be taken care of by a clean
>         shearing of
>         > commands that are used for actual action (i.e., in a file
>         browser
>         > relate to actual browsing instead of slightly less needed
>         interface
>         > editing like "reset view to defaults" or history clearing)
>         and menu
>         > items which do not directly relate to the task at hand.
>         
>         
>         You lost me here. Are you making a case for well thought-out
>         menus? If
>         so then yes, I agree menus should be well thought-out. 
>         
>         > Again, Chrome is really a great example of giving context
>         menus which
>         > are very dependent on the area clicked, and two very sparse
>         clean
>         > menus, with all non-essential interface controls tucked
>         away.
>         > Accessible in 3 or less clicks, but away. In addition, this
>         would
>         > hopefully lower the levels of total overlap going on.
>         
>         
>         None of the issues I raised pertain to clicking (using a
>         pointing
>         device). But you are right about the Chromium menus being well
>         organised. And the use of context menus is good too.
>         
>         However, Chromium also highlights one of the issues I
>         menioned: how do
>         you open one of those menus without a mouse? I'll save you
>         some
>         frustration for the "Customise and Control Chromium" menu:
>         it's Alt+F. I
>         know that from trial and error--guessing key combinations
>         until a menu
>         popped up. I'm yet to figure out how to duplicate a tab. 
>         
>         
>         > On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 8:15 PM, Luke Morton
>         > <luke.morton@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>         >
>         >         On Mon, 2010-05-17 at 18:47 -0700, Tyler Brainerd
>         wrote:
>         >         > I know, I know, we just had an announcement about
>         changing
>         >         menu's over
>         >         > to global menu's for the UNE. But seriously, how
>         necessary
>         >         is 4 menus
>         >         > in the calculator application "gcalctool"? The
>         only menu
>         >         options that
>         >         > have anything to do with actual calculator options
>         are under
>         >         the view
>         >         > menu. The rest is silly and redundant.
>         >         >
>         >         >
>         >         > I just wrote a fairly long blog post on my blog
>         here, along
>         >         with
>         >         > mockups and what not:
>         >         >
>         >
>         http://tjamesubuntu.blogspot.com/2010/05/re-thinking-desktop.html
>         >         >
>         >         >
>         >         > about how silly most apps menu's are. I'm hoping
>         that we can
>         >         maybe
>         >         > pool some resources on looking at what is and what
>         isn't
>         >         necessary in
>         >         > default applications in Ubuntu, although I'm not
>         under any
>         >         impression
>         >         > that this will be something to be put directly in
>         default
>         >         Ubuntu.
>         >         > However, I do think it is the sort of mod that can
>         gain
>         >         traction
>         >         > similar to Nautilus-Elementary if we can get
>         applications
>         >         repackaged
>         >         > with cleaned up and optimized menus.
>         >
>         >
>         >         "Cleaned up and optimised"; sounds like a good idea.
>         How would
>         >         you do
>         >         that for the gcalctool menus? (They seem pretty good
>         to me.)
>         >
>         >         General comments:
>         >         (Pertaining to the removal of menus and replacement
>         with
>         >         toolbar menus
>         >         as mentioned in your blog post.)
>         >
>         >         1. Menus provide access to functions that might be
>         otherwise
>         >         obscured,
>         >         infrequently used or hard to access--especially for
>         people who
>         >         cannot
>         >         use pointing devices.
>         >
>         >         For example, I can tell that if I want to insert
>         something
>         >         into this
>         >         email I can press Alt+I to get the insert menu, even
>         though
>         >         I've never
>         >         used it before. If that menu were represented by an
>         icon in a
>         >         toolbar,
>         >         how would I get to it without having to tab through
>         the entire
>         >         interface?
>         >
>         >         2. Menus provide a convenient reference list of
>         keyboard
>         >         accelerators.
>         >         If that menu were represented by an icon in a
>         toolbar, how
>         >         would I get
>         >         to it without having to tab through the entire
>         interface?
>         >
>         >         Take gcalctool for example. If it didn't have a
>         menu, and you
>         >         couldn't
>         >         use your mouse, how would you switch to a different
>         mode? Quit
>         >         the
>         >         application? Input an ASCII character?
>         >
>         >         3. A menu by itself takes up less space than a
>         toolbar by
>         >         itself
>         >
>         >         Removing the menu in gcalctool in the same way that
>         >         Nautilus-Elementary
>         >         removes the menu would mean that we'd have to add a
>         toolbar
>         >         for the
>         >         functions that have no-where else to go. (I don't
>         think this
>         >         is
>         >         particularly important though.)
>         >         None of these are absolute barriers to your idea,
>         but they are
>         >         things
>         >         that need to be considered/resolved.
>         >
>         >
>         >
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