Re: Re: Thoughts about statusbar
> a) superfluous to the user (kmail's composer window) > b) useful, but should be put elsewhere > c) moving it elsewhere wouldn't result in any visual or usage improvements, > so is justified in usage If we ban the statusbar usage for the general use allowing only exceptions like rekonq, then moving things elsewhere will be an improvement since it will help the global experience. So I will turn C into a "Only allowing exceptions". > with the three categories you outlined, and the third broken down into 3 > subcategories, i think we'd have something that could be formulated into a > firm statement (i'd suggest doing something on community.kde.org to draft > it, later if it becomes part of The KDE Way it could be moved to techbase). > then we can get some of the interaction designers around KDE to look at it > and offer suggestions and provide their support. then post an announcement > to k-c- d about the page, ask for feedback and then, and this is the most > important part, start generating patches for applications to make them fall > in line. Based on some past experience, I do not recommend asking for feedback in k-c- d, we should setup a single place to discuss all this "Overall experience" stuff for example I'm thinking in a kde-workspace mailist. In the same way that we have learn to respect and to support the kde-promo team, the KDE community should learn to respect and support the "kde- workspace" team, on where of course interaction experts and designers will rule the place instead of developers like myself. Going to start another thread to discuss that. ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Re: Thoughts about statusbar
On Tuesday 25 October 2011 14:14:03 Aurélien Gâteau wrote: > > And yes this is clearly Workspace and not application related. We as the > > workspace define how an application has to look like and how it has to > > behave. > The statusbar is inside the application window, so I disagree this is a > workspace issue. My personal opinion is that the Workspace has to define how the windows have to behave and it is the task of the Workspace to enforce some consistancy on the applications if it has to be. (Compare global menu or Notify OSD at that comany in your mail address ;-) As we see that the application developers fail to improve the UI (exceptions are there as usual - e.g. Dolphin, Gwenview or rekonq) we could even go so far to say that it is the responsibility of the part of our workspace experience which works on having a consistant UI and a clear interaction concept. In fact with Plasma Active we are already doing a top-down approach on the app from the workspace. We just never did on the desktop, because we "trust" the application developers to do the best. So I'm all for more power to the workspace [1], but I don't want to play UI expert either ;-) Cheers Martin [1] http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2011/05/where-ends-the-workspace- and-where-begins-the-application/ > > Aurélien > ___ > Plasma-devel mailing list > Plasma-devel@kde.org > https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Re: Thoughts about statusbar
On Tuesday 25 October 2011 20:41:23 David Edmundson wrote: > KDE Usability is the mailing list I had in my mind when I wrote it. I > didn't mean do distract from the focus of a thread I think is quite > important. Interesting that two devs mentioned the usability mailing list. I hope this is an indication that it is useful again. My last interaction with this list was no reply to a very concrete question from the KWin team for usability guidance [1]. Since then I considered the list as just dead. > > Anyway, given I've decided I should pay more attention to plasma and > get away from just hacking constantly on one project, to make up for > it here is a breakdown of statusbars the most commonly used apps in > KDE. This was made with a fresh account with no settings altered. > > I think the important thing to do is to make a list of the uses of the > status bar; displaying the URL of links, showing download progress, > showing errors, showing the filename etc. Then to analyse these on a > use by use basis (not an app by app basis) "where is the best place > this piece of information" (which could be nowhere, a KMessageBox, > tooltips, menus, or even remaining in the status bar). If an app then > ends up with nothing left in the status bar it's time to remove it. This matches with what I had in mind when I wrote that we need to extract the useful messages into some better fitting UI elements. > > For me the issue isn't so much wasted space as much as an > inconsistency in where the same piece information is displayed between > apps. +1 and that's not limited to the statusbar :-( > > (sorry for the essay) not at all, it was an interesting read Cheers Martin [1] http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-usability&m=130393074318976&w=2 > ___ > Plasma-devel mailing list > Plasma-devel@kde.org > https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Re: Re: Thoughts about statusbar
On Tuesday 25 October 2011 15:37:20 David Edmundson wrote: > On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 3:35 PM, Alex Fiestas wrote: > > On Tuesday, October 25, 2011 11:57:33 AM Aaron J. Seigo wrote: > >> yes; as well as sometimes just saying "that information is not worth it". > >> the kmail example is a great one. i do not care what column and line i am > >> on and spell checking should be shown in the toolbar if at all. > > > > More conservative and globally-aplicable would be to add a toggle to > > show/hide statusbar per app/window in the same way almost app do with the > > menubar. By default this option will be set as hidden but if some user > > want to be able to see the column number, she/he will be able to set it > > as shown again. > Is plasma-devel really the right mailing list for something that > affects every app, and nothing in plasma? which other list do you think is appropriate for Workspace related discussions? And yes this is clearly Workspace and not application related. We as the workspace define how an application has to look like and how it has to behave. Cheers Martin > > > ___ > > Plasma-devel mailing list > > Plasma-devel@kde.org > > https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel > > ___ > Plasma-devel mailing list > Plasma-devel@kde.org > https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Re: Thoughts about statusbar
On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 3:35 PM, Alex Fiestas wrote: > On Tuesday, October 25, 2011 11:57:33 AM Aaron J. Seigo wrote: >> yes; as well as sometimes just saying "that information is not worth it". >> the kmail example is a great one. i do not care what column and line i am >> on and spell checking should be shown in the toolbar if at all. > > More conservative and globally-aplicable would be to add a toggle to show/hide > statusbar per app/window in the same way almost app do with the menubar. By > default this option will be set as hidden but if some user want to be able to > see the column number, she/he will be able to set it as shown again. Is plasma-devel really the right mailing list for something that affects every app, and nothing in plasma? > ___ > Plasma-devel mailing list > Plasma-devel@kde.org > https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel > ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Re: Thoughts about statusbar
On Tuesday, October 25, 2011 11:57:33 AM Aaron J. Seigo wrote: > yes; as well as sometimes just saying "that information is not worth it". > the kmail example is a great one. i do not care what column and line i am > on and spell checking should be shown in the toolbar if at all. More conservative and globally-aplicable would be to add a toggle to show/hide statusbar per app/window in the same way almost app do with the menubar. By default this option will be set as hidden but if some user want to be able to see the column number, she/he will be able to set it as shown again. ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Re: Thoughts about statusbar
On Tuesday 11 October 2011 12:54:23 todd rme wrote: > On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 12:16 PM, Alex Fiestas wrote: > > Taking a look at some apps, I've noticed that most of them have an almost > > unused statusbar (or totally not used in some cases) resulting in a big > > empty grey space. > > > > In the same way that bit a bit we're fixing the KStatusNotifeir behavior > > in > > our apps, should we fix the status bar by removing it and placing > > somewhere > > else the content (if they are really needed?) > > > > The easier thing though, and the very least we should do is hide it by > > default as some apps do. > > > > What do you think? is statusbar (as badly used right now) needed? > > What about the way rekonq does it? It just displays the information > needed when it is needed in a box in the lower-right of the window. > This could do with some better theming perhaps, but otherwise for > these situations it seems to make sense. The rekonq one is quite good as it is context sensitive, but with my KWin dev hat on I could cry when I see how they did it. For rekonq it would be much better to just show the link as a tooltip as that would be the most context sensitive way. Why do I have to understand that the link is shown on the down left corner of the window? Yes Firefox does it the same way. For most applications I think just removing it is the right approach. E.g. if network is not working in kopete it is way better to have a proper in app warning than a small text in the statusbar saying "no network". The real issue is probably that this is an per-application change. So we would have to define a project to go through all applications, extract the useful messages, put them into in-app warnings and remove the statusbar. After we have done that we could shange the KXmlGuiWindow (or however it's called - never done a KDE application) and deactivate the statusbar by default. Cheers Martin > > -Todd > ___ > Plasma-devel mailing list > Plasma-devel@kde.org > https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
Re: Re: Thoughts about statusbar
On Tuesday, October 11, 2011 12:54:23 PM todd rme wrote: > On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 12:16 PM, Alex Fiestas wrote: > > Taking a look at some apps, I've noticed that most of them have an almost > > unused statusbar (or totally not used in some cases) resulting in a big > > empty grey space. > > > > In the same way that bit a bit we're fixing the KStatusNotifeir behavior > > in > > our apps, should we fix the status bar by removing it and placing > > somewhere > > else the content (if they are really needed?) > > > > The easier thing though, and the very least we should do is hide it by > > default as some apps do. > > > > What do you think? is statusbar (as badly used right now) needed? > > What about the way rekonq does it? It just displays the information > needed when it is needed in a box in the lower-right of the window. > This could do with some better theming perhaps, but otherwise for > these situations it seems to make sense. > I'm just wondering, in which situations it is really needed? right now writting this email from KMail there is a statusbar showing if Spellcheck is on, clumns and line, is that really needed? Like that, there are many other examples. ___ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
