Hi Anne--
Good points. Here are some thoughts.
(1) It's true that I initially assumed that it would run in its own
window, and that it would resize the window in response to certain
user actions: shrink/expand, show/hide left sidebar, show/hide right
sidebar.
(2) Now that you point it out, it's obvious that we have to make the
design work in a multi-tab scenario as you've described, without
causing the window size to change when in that mode. So I'll have to
factor that into my thinking as I start work on a real UI spec.
(3) I still think the shrink/expand mode of usage will be useful to
some people, but for those who run in a multiple tabs mode they can
simply never click the "Shrink" button and there will be no problem.
If desired we can have a user-preference as to whether to enable or
disable this feature so they can never accidentally shrink the window.
(4) I'm not yet sure how to handle showing/hiding sidebars (haven't
really thought about it yet), but I'm sure I can come up with
something reasonable to propose.
Regards,
Bill
At 11:01 AM +0100 2/6/09, Anne Kathrine Petteroe wrote:
Hi,
before we move on with the development of a new web UI, I would like
to comment on the use of browser resizing.
Based on the drawings in Bill's document, it looks like the UI will
be living in it's own browser window to work best.
When I look at the design it looks like it is sometimes not a full
browser window but more like a floating box in a broswer window to
me.
See "The Shrunken Window" chapter for instance.
I see a possible problem with a UI that runs in a separate browser
window. Most modern browsers (FF, IE7+, etc) use tabs.
Most users have learned to use multiple tabs rather than multiple
browser instances.
Therefore, resizing the entire browser window based on ESME-related
changes would cause problems with the other applications that are in
that browser instance.
The problem for me with this is that I would never use a UI which
needs a seperate window. (unless I am forced to use IE6)
My browser window is always set to 1024px with at any given time at
least 5 open tabs. Google Reader, gmail, twitter and SDN are the four
services I *always* have open as tabs.
I would like to see a UI which doesn't affect the size of my browser
window, which means in any give state is no wider than 1024 px.
What do others say about this issue?
/Anne
--
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Bill Fernandez * User Interface Architect * Bill Fernandez Design
(505) 346-3080 * [email protected] * http://billfernandez.com
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