[2003-06-19] Aleksey Gurtovoy wrote: >Rene Rivera wrote: >> [2003-06-18] Aleksey Gurtovoy wrote: >> So >> having what is essentially a binary indicator is misleading. > >As long as it reports things correctly, it's not.
I'll only say that I agree with Peter's comments on this point. >> ...Indicators of various kinds: >> >> Don't use background colors as indicators. It just obscure any >> possible information that the text is trying to indicate. > >The first thing I would say is that this and most of other points below >are highly subjective. I would appreciate if we discuss them in a less >imperative tone ;). Sorry I wasn't trying to sound imperative :-\ But I also thought I wasn't mentioning anything other than established fact. My comments are things you'll find in most HTML and typography design books. >Basically, there is a single (and simple!) idea that both motivates >using of background colors and suggests the particular scheme, that is, >that you should be able to determine the status of things by just >glancing over them. You don't have to read (and, ideally, to scroll >anything). It's especially important and wanted for the CVS health >(developer) report, which normally should be a full green field. >We are not pioneers here - see Built Bot >(http://twistedmatrix.com/~warner.twistd/) or Mozilla reports, - nor we >think we are picking up a bad practice. You don't need background color to do what you intend. I looked at the above pointer and I think the use of background colors in that sample are also unjustified. But I guess this is a put up or shut up ;-) So here's a reformulation, style wise, of the user summaray page which I think shows the same information in a considerably more readable form without loosing the ability to glance at the results... http://redshift-software.com/~grafik/boost-regression/user_summary_page.html >> Be more informative in the text indicators. Using "OK" and "OK*" as >> different indicators just looses any meaning that each may have on >> thei own. They both look just the same to me. Suggestion use "Supported" >> and "Partial". > >They are close to be the same from a user standpoint, but I like your >suggestion. Only those are too long :(. Can't think of a shorter synomyn, but with carefull use of a smaller font it can work. (see the above link) >> Even though you did use different terms for the non-working indicator >> in the user page, the ones you chose are again equivalent; "doesn't work" >> has the same meaning as "broken". > >IMO it doesn't, and the legend tries to explain the difference. It's not enough for the legend to explain it. As far as Eglish usage is concerned they are synonyms. >> Pick something that conveys the intended meaning better. In this case: >> "Unsupported"/"Fails" seems more appropriate IMO. > >Not bad, too, but again, too long. It's important to keep the table >compact. Any other suggestions? Fail is short enough. Don't know of an alternative for Unsupported, yet ;-) Perhaps an abbreviation would be sufficient; Unsup. ?? >> The developer summary has one serious problem. You have two OK >> indicators for different things. The dark green OK is just wrong. > >Nope, it's not :). OK ;-) I'll just have to try and understand what it really means. But the fact that it's not obvious should be a clue as to it's ineffectiveness. >> Unless the number of libraries get's really large, there's no point in >> having the column labels at the bottom of the table. > >It's already large enough to not fit into my screen. Even if you have >a huge monitor, it doesn't hurt having those, does it? OK, understood. Using the more standard header repetition at regular intercals seems like a possibility. Again see the link. >> That alignment also applies to the cell content. Sticking to the language >> standards (English) for this makes it easier on the reader. > >Strongly disagree, here. I definitely want to see the status centered. Well you'll have to tell me if it works on the version I made ;-) -- grafik - Don't Assume Anything -- rrivera (at) acm.org - grafik (at) redshift-software.com -- 102708583 (at) icq _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost
