Bruno Rizzuti wrote:
Hi!
> 1. "Ugly icon. Brownish. What are those two pieces of hair?". Those
> are the impression of a friend of mine. I fully agree.
Arguably ugly. Still it's the one that is there since ... ages.
> 2. Splash screen. It makes a program look outdated, and Scid doesn't
> really need it.
This is not quite correct it actually shows some quite useful things
there which help tracking an error. One could suppress it though as one
could recall it from the menu as well. (Help / startup window). From
this point of view it is actually much more useful than any of those
starting windows I know of.
> It's even too fast on my pc (which is entry-level
> class, nothing fancy), giving the impression of a window error that
> the program rapidly closes. If you feel that other users with a slow
> system need it, then maintain it but on top of the main window. Also,
> either you are showing useful information (but I don't think so...)
> and you have to make it persist for a while for people with faster pc,
> or useless information that should be kept to a minimum (ideally, just
> a small logo, *no words*).
Point is, it is actually useful, so you can't just show a useless image
instead. I agree that I hate stuff like e.g. startup windows from Adobe
Reader or the like that are of no use at all, but Scids window actually
helps in some cases. Maybe it should be suppressed and just called up
from the menu, however.
> 3. The icons on the screen are terrible, the worst part of the
> program. They look like "Windows 3.1", if you know what I mean. The
> ones on the second rank are not even well separated from each other.
Hm. Do you have a better set at hand? Would you want to draw one? We're
actually open to an improved version indeed but unfortunately no one
came up with a set till now. :(
> 4. Junk stuff on the screen. [Event "?"], [Site "?"], and so on, on
> the right. Not even formatted. Game 0: ? -- ?, * (0) ????, and so on,
> at the bottom. If those fields are empty, you better don't show it
> (maintaining the formatting, which is very important).
This is actually data for an empty game. Not junk. Still, in recent
versions you can suppress the game info area.
> 5. The title of the window. "Scid - [clipbase] (game 0/0)". All modern
> programs use "nameofthefile - nameoftheprogram", and if nameofthefile
> is not available they suggest one, such as "Untitle 1 - OpenOffice.org
> Writer".
So you suggest to change it to
[clipbase] - Scid
and remove "(game 0/0)"? Because: Scid always has a file opened: the
clipbase. Still this is a special file.
> "game 0" is misleading, that is the first game
No. It isn't. Its game 0 till you save it when it will change to game 1.
Therefore game 0 shows clearly that you didn't add the game.
> (see example of OpenOffice) of a new database (no matter if one later chooses
> to
> save that database or not), so it should be 1/1.
You don't save the database. You save a record therein. This is a huge
difference here. It does not compare to a word processor.
> Anyway, on top of the
> window is not the right place for that piece of information. It should
> be at the bottom.
I disagree as the window title shows up in the window list. And it is
usefull to switch to "Scid - Correspondence (game 55/63)" ;)
> 6. The color of the chessboard. Don't get me wrong, I love wood and I
> would use exactly that one, but this is not what gives a first
> impression of a modern software. Choosing combination 4 in Colors
> would be much better.
? Scids default startup is actually blue/white for the board. I agree
that I'd never choose the eboard pieceset as default. It's IMHO plain
ugly as unaliased and wihtout proper alpha channel and it has to much
details for this kind of rendering. Again there is no better set of this
kind available, if you have a free one I'd happily replace the current one.
> 7. Menu names. "File, Edit, View" are the first three entries in such
> different programs as OpenOffice, Firefox, FileZilla, etc. There is a
> reason why.
Some items of OpenOffice just don't make ANY sense in Scid.
> Of course other ways are possible, and it doesn't make a
> great difference to a long-time user. But first-time user gets a bit
> mislead, and that adds up to the other things he might not like.
But what would you do if items make no sense?
> 8. (this was absent in the former message) The icon within the program
> window is different with respect to the icon launching the program.
Yes, that is true. I don't know how to change this. Probably Pascal
knows where to do it.
> And by the way, the former is more "modern-looking" than the latter,
> but i cannot even identify what it represents.
Well, especially on Windows I know hardly any program where I can deduce
it's purpose by the icon. Scids Icon shows at least a chess board.
Anyway, if you have a better one we can discuss this I think.
> ...Well, I have tons of other observations, but I think it is enough
> here. I have just highlighted things that pops up to my eye (as a
> common user) *before even starting to use the program*! If you are
> further interested in my observations, I could add more. And please,
> don't get me wrong: I am happy Scid exists and I always suggest it as
> the best choice. I really appreciate your work on that, even if I
> think it can be greatly improved.
Especially for the artwork: if you have improved versions we would
happily include them. But, and I think here I can speak for Pascal as
well, I'm no artist and I just can't draw them myself. Plus, due to
Scids purpose the usual stock icons don't offer much useful symbols as
well so we need someone who does them.
Finally: you'll IMHO(!) really have to keep in mind that you CAN NOT
compare Scid to a word processor. It behaves completely different in
many respects as it's a database GUI. I agree however that probably some
points could improved. But I also admit: even for some of the more
recent "improvements" in the GUI handling I sometimes come to the
conclusion that the old behaviour was much more to the point. E.g. this
"jump into a variant if a move already exists" feature for me is a
completely "non-feature", just to name one. Similar for this docking
mode which I consider broken by design. (No offense to anyone who likes
MDI for whatever reason, I just don't understand why and find it useless
and unproductive...)
--
Kind regards, / War is Peace.
| Freedom is Slavery.
Alexander Wagner | Ignorance is Strength.
|
| Theory : G. Orwell, "1984"
/ In practice: USA, since 2001
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