On Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:55:35 -0800, Dan Williams <[email protected]> wrote: > On Mon, 2010-03-08 at 13:24 +0100, van Schelve wrote: >> We are planning to rollout NM > 0.8 to a very! big number of mobile Linux >> systems. Our different usecases for NM are Ethernet, 3G datacards, >> bluetooth based 3g and in small numbers wlan as well. >> >> Today we had a discussion about nm-applet in our companay. We are worried >> about our user get overcharge with the usability of nm-applet. The >> biggest >> painpoint we talked about in this context is way nm presents the >> available >> devices, available connections and the active connections. >> >> The horizontal separator should be removed from nm-applet. It looks like >> a >> logical separator between different connection types. > > Hmm, the indentation was supposed to help make that clearer. The > problem is that we do need a mechanism to distinguish between the > "current" network connection for that device and it's associated actions > (like disconnect) and the other available connections. Unfortunately > we're currently stuck in a GtkMenu widget where we can't control the > layout in a fine-grained manner without violating a lot of UI principles > (since it is still a menu). > >> Maybe it could be a way using differnt font size / weight? Or maybe >> indenting blockwise? > > It might work to make the "available" text in the line smaller perhaps > to differentiate it more from the surrounding text? >
What do you think about presenting the list in this way: ------------------------------------- Wired Network [ ] Auto eth0 (100Mit FD) ------------------------------------- Mobile Broadband [x] MyCompany ------------------------------------- Nokia 6680 (Bluetooth) [ ] MyCompany ------------------------------------- Wireless Network [x] Foobar (83%) [ ] blahfasel (60%) [ ] muckebock (50%) Connect to Hidden Wireless Network Create New Wireless Network ------------------------------------- VPN [ ] MyCompany (openvpn) [ ] @Home (vpnc) The user is able to activate or deactivate a connection by clicking into a checkbox, or even better using a radio button because you can only have one active connection for each physical device. The horizonal rules are not really necessary but I thought you like them ;-) >> Are there currently any plans to polish the nm-applet? > > Mainly plans to stop using a GtkMenu widget entirely and move to a more > freeform widget. That's not in-progress yet though. Until then we can > certainly discuss ways to make the current menu-based approach better, > especially if we find that users are confused with it. We should have a > lot better data on the new applet too given that both Ubuntu 9.10 and > Fedora 12 shipped with it. > You are right. The user will give response. But most of them do have a more or less technical background. The users I am thinking about are really native end users. They know their business application (more or less). They know the difference between eMail and a letter. That's it. My problem is that I have thousands of them ;-) HG > Dan _______________________________________________ NetworkManager-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/networkmanager-list
