MCBastos wrote:
Interesting post about preference dialogs:
<http://limi.net/checkboxes-that-kill>
Food for thought. That was about Firefox, but Seamonkey has probably
even more options exposed through the main preferences interface. Are
there some of them that should be hidden because they do more harm than
good?
I haven't found any, but I do take note of the number of work-arounda
that occur here employing about:config - I think most of what you're
getting at can be found there, and as I've mentioned before I like the
Opera reset option and how it's implemented.
I used to work under the assumption that Seamonkey is mostly used by
power-users who use it exactly for those exposed features, but recently
posted statistics show a large drop of SM usage on weekends --
suggesting those users use SM only at work, and something else at home.
That is, they don't use SM by choice, but because it's company policy.
Those groups of users would benefit from a streamlined, idiot-proofed
preferences system.
I'm pretty surprised to read this, because I've been lobbying for
adoption of SM in my workplace as a follow-on to Netscape...for the
reasons you note, but I've become more and more aware of the reasons my
particular workplace may not be a suitable environment for SM as I've
learned more about it's inner workings. In some instances they do allow
use of FF, but not many...and as you note SM is far more configurable.
But this also touches my UE/UI nerve...a lot of these problems can be
addressed by thoughtful implementation/interface construction and still
maintaining the functionality/flexibility.
Fooling around with about:config signals "power user" to me, whereas
*the* bottom line for the "average user" is simply that the interface is
clear/understandable, does what it says, and does so consistently.
But I'm still left curious about these "business users"...I should think
that the SM user base would be far higher if employers were
adopting/requiring it...which I've been waving the flag for for the last
couple decades....
--
- Rufus
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