Thanks for the feedback, Andrea. My comments are inline below: On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 2:57 AM, Andrea Aime <[email protected]> wrote: >> Generally speaking it works for me, all besides the preview link. It may not >> be prominent >> but the current position is one of those you barely have to look for since >> it's just "bottom left". >> I guess for those on notebooks with smaller screens it may end up out of the >> screen?
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 10:18 AM, Andrea Aime <[email protected]> wrote: >> To me it's preferred to the very bottom or the very top. The reasoning is >> that one does not >> actually read anything to locate it, it's just the last line so visually >> you're just looking for >> the last item in the menu list. When you look for something else, like >> "layers", you actually >> have to read the labels to locate it. Makes sense? So your concern is primarily one of scanability? That's reasonable, as I could see how it may get lost in a list of other links. I can't say that I totally agree with the status quo though, as "the last item in the menu list" is only as 'intuitive' as we have been habituated to think by using GeoServer pretty much every day. My concern with adopting the proposed changes but leaving the Layer Preview link at the bottom is that, as Justin described, the general rationale behind the reorganization is to order things roughly from most relevant to least relevant—hence why I proposed moving it up to the fourth position (when logged in), as leaving it at the bottom would put our most used menu item in the "least relevant" position (along with Demos). As you pointed out, the bottom position is not exactly the best for netbook users or really anyone who doesn't keep their browser window at full screen all the time. To further solve any scanability problems, the proposal seeks to habituate users as to the location of the Layer Preview. As you'll note from the proposed logged-out state, the Layer Preview shows up prominently as one of two available items and establishes that the user should expect to locate it within the Data section once they log in. This habit is further reinforced by placing it at the very top of the Data section at all times. >> I certainly would have to make more effort to find it in the new position >> that in the current one. >> Maybe we could retain the quick to look up position if the layer preview was >> placed at >> the top of the "server" category (top left) I don't necessarily agree that putting it further towards the top "takes more effort to find" than the current position near the bottom of the list—especially for new users or people who never log in but just want to find the layers. Though I do agree that there would be a short period of time during existing users would need to relearn their habits, I think I made a decent case that it wouldn't be such a big deal. Should there be broad disagrement with this proposal though, I think a compromise that would put the Layer Preview at the top of the list is better than one that maintains it at the bottom. Anyway, thanks again for humoring me in the channel Andrea. I hope I put forth a reasonably convincing argument for a more internally consistent and more relevantly organized sidebar. If anyone has any thoughts please feel free to contact me. Cheers, Rollie -- Rolando Peñate Design Lead OpenGeo - http://opengeo.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The ultimate all-in-one performance toolkit: Intel(R) Parallel Studio XE: Pinpoint memory and threading errors before they happen. Find and fix more than 250 security defects in the development cycle. Locate bottlenecks in serial and parallel code that limit performance. http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-dev2devfeb _______________________________________________ Geoserver-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geoserver-devel
