Hi crowd, Here are my thoughts on some usability issues in E. What bugs me atm is that I'm working on the icons for the dialogs in the conf panel, and I think there are too much dialogs and some could be merged or removed altogether. I am aware that a redesign of the whole panel is planned, so my ideas may help. Actually, if it's going to be an icon view-based thing, then we kinda must merge some of the dialogs, otherwise its gonna be huge.
---Dialogs--- 1) Colors, I think can easily just be a tab in the Theme dialog, since its just customizing the theme. 2) Icon theme - this one can be very confusing for every gnome/kde user, since they'd expect that all icons - in E or in 3rd party apps will suddenly change. And thats how it should be, I see this as a design disadvange of the "everything in one .edj" approach. Anyway, I think this can easily go in Theme as well. 3) Mouse Cursor - the same. 4) Scaling - I'm not sure what this dialog does at all. It's tiny and not well explained. We NEED tooltips for idiots like me. 5) Dropshadow - move to Windows part of the panel. I think it makes much more sense, since its totally related only to windows, it doesnt put dropshadows under text or theme elements or anything like that. 6) Apps Problem with naming this Apps is that its not about applications themselves, but application launchers. On the other hand "app launcher" is long and probably no good for not tech-savvy users. I think only one dialog where people can create launchers and put them in place would be enough. Also simple checkboxes "launch on startup" and "launch on restart" would be more than enough, no need even for separate dialogs (that even sound confusing), I think. Also, if the user wants to start an app when E start, I think its obvious that he/she would want this app to restart when they restart E (or when E crashes). So that questions, the "restart applications" thing altogether. 7) Windows. I guarantee right now a typical user would just say "holy shit". I know i do :-) And I'm not even sure about most of the stuff here, but I'm sure we can merge some of these, rename some of them, add freaking tooltips, etc. 8) Menu settings -> Menu preferences? Also, this one seems kinda broken - Advanced shows exactly the same content, but in tabs.. 9) Client List Menu - who's client? what menu? ;-) 10) Language -> Localization 11) Input Method Settings - I really don't know what this thing does. 12) We can merge Mouse Settings and Bindigns into one dialog with tabs. Not sure about Interaction (not sure what it does) and Edge bindings. 13) Don't think we need Settings of the Settings. The user can make E remember the position of the windows in other ways and a checkbox "don't show this in the future" in the confirmation dialogs would be much better. 14) Profiles may go in Look & feel or Advanced. 15) The mixer doenst need a dialog on its own in the conf panel. 16) Pager's setings can be accessed with right click on it, no need for conf panel dialog. 17) Gadgets is totally useless? To my understanding it adds a gadget to the desktop.. there are much clever ways to do this. 18) File Icons - this thing should be removed altogether. Its ugly, complicated and pretty useless. Just because when you click on a file, see it settings you can assign it a custom icon, there is just no need for this thing. Not to mention the huge, confusing list of mime types. --Menus--- 1) I dont think that Fav apps should be in the manin menu by default. Its more than easily accessible via right click. 2) Files - should be disabled if icons on the desktop are enabled. It takes space and doesn't do a better job compared to clicking on your home/root/whatever icon on the desk. 3) "Run everything" just sounds confusing. As in "run everything you have at once" or something. Have to think about it more. 4) We have the Shelves conf dialog where the user can add and edit shelves, why is the Shelves submenu needed? 5) A simple gadged with an icon on the shelf would be better for "show/hide all windows". As an addition to this menu, not as a replacement. 6) Enlightenment -> theme is useless and has to be removed. Its confusing since users would think that would lead them to the conf panel to change the E theme An "about this theme" button in the theme conf dialog is THE solution. Restart and Exit could be moved to system. Then leave one "About Enlightenment" entry in the main menu. 7) Do we really need the configuration shortcuts? I think just one "Settings" entry would be enough, no submenus. A good example is the Shelves submenu - the user can access the Shelves settings by right clicking on any shelf AND thruough the config panel itself, I see no need for it in the main menu. Same for the rest of the things there, I think Thanks, Mano ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ThinkGeek and WIRED's GeekDad team up for the Ultimate GeekDad Father's Day Giveaway. ONE MASSIVE PRIZE to the lucky parental unit. See the prize list and enter to win: http://p.sf.net/sfu/thinkgeek-promo _______________________________________________ enlightenment-devel mailing list enlightenment-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/enlightenment-devel
