I vote for #1.
Most NICs shouldn't have huge numbers of properties,
I'd be willing to even offer that *all* of these link configuration
properties fall into the realm of "Advanced Properties". The default
operating state for a typical ethernet NIC does not require further
configuration.
So given that this is advanced usage, a more complex dialog (with scroll
bars or whatever) is not unreasonable. You'll note that you probably
only need less than a half-dozen properties for tuning a typical nic,
anyway. So you probably won't need the scroll-bars anyway. (And maybe
the ugliness in the UI from having too many tunables will act as a
deterrent to NIC developers that want to expose every little knob to
end-users .... we suffer greatly from having a cockpit that has way too
many controls in it.)
I would be smart and put the most often tuned parameters first in the
list though. Autoconfiguration, Speed and Duplex go ahead of MTU, which
is ahead of Flow Control.
-- Garrett
Jenya Gestrin wrote:
> More on GUI feedback:
> some reviewers expressed their disappointment with Properties Setting
> tab (see
> http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/brussels/Documentation/proto6/).
> "...having to select the various properties in turn, and not being
> able to see the values of the others, would be very tedious..."
>
> I designed two possible solutions for this problem.
> *1. Properties as a table with the value column being editable. *
>
> Advantage: having all the options for each property on display would
> be more helpful for the administrator to make the selection.
> Disadvantages:
> a. due to the dialog window size constrain no more than 6 properties
> could be displayed at a time (scrollbar is introduced).
> b. numerous dropdown controls in the column are hard to comprehend and
> add visual noise.
>
> *2. Properties as a table with non editable value column. User selects
> property and clicks edit button to bring up an Edit dialog box.
> *
> Advantage: having all the options for each property on display would
> be more helpful for the administrator to make the selection.
> Disadvantages: Advanced (extended) dialog window appears on top of the
> Network Configuration window. Property Edit dialog window becomes
> another yet "layer" of dialog window. Even if we make it module, user
> ends up with three dialog windows one on top of another which makes it
> easy to get lost...
>
> Please review these options and send me your feedback. Personally, I
> think that what we proposed initially is still the best UI approach.
>
> Thank you
> Jenya
>
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