On Jun 4, 2007, at 11:15 PM, Sebastian Heinlein wrote:
Am Montag, den 04.06.2007, 22:43 +1200 schrieb Matthew Paul Thomas: ...So here's what the competition does: <http://think-well.org/articles/2006/12/28/managing-multiple-displays>How does the MacOS dialog allow to change the resolution of each monitor?
(For the benefit of those who weren't in #ubuntu-devel...) Following the principle of direct manipulation, it opens a secondary dialog *on each display*, for setting the resolution+refresh+colors of that display. <http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/DummiesArticle/id-3130.html> The secondary dialogs cannot be dismissed by themselves, but presumably they disappear as soon as you leave the Displays pane of System Preferences. (This works because the whole mechanism is instant-apply.)
If you disconnect a display completely, any windows that were on it are automatically moved to the primary display, and resized if necessary. However, any desktop icons that were on the secondary display remain lost until you either Arrange or Select All then Clean Up the desktop, which isn't good.
(This is a correction to what I said in #ubuntu-devel...) If any display remains connected but isn't working properly (e.g. you've managed to set it to an incompatible refresh rate), both the primary Displays window and the secondary display dialogs have a "Gather Windows" button. Clicking that button on a display moves *all* windows onto that display that are not already on it. (This includes the other display window/dialogs. The secondary display dialogs are still distinguishable by the name of the display in their title bars.) But if your primary display is the one that's hosed, you're still stuck unless you have a keyboard combo set up to launch the Displays window in the first place (because you can't launch it from an invisible menu bar or Dock).
...At the top center of the window could be an option menu listing the available displays (defaulting to the primary display), followed by a separator, then items for managing multiple displays. The rest of the window would show settings for the current display. For example: ________________________________________ |(x) Displays (-)| | ______________________ | | |__LCD (Primary)_____:^| | |________________________________________| | | | (display-specific settings here) | : : The menu when opened: ________________________________________ |(x) Displays (-)| | ______________________ | | |/:LCD:(Primary):::::::| | |________| Canon LV-7575 |________| | | Unknown | | | |----------------------| | | | Graphics Card... | | | | Arrange Displays... | | : """""""""""""""""""""" : "Graphics Card..." and "Arrange Displays..." would both open separate dialogs, and would not be actual choices. I agree with Corey and Mikko that the arrangement UI should usedraggable thumbnails of each display. For accessibility, each thumbnail could be focusable and movable using the arrow keys.In GNOME we use a notebook with tabs or a left sided list view. It would not be consistent.
That's a strange thing to say, because you've already added an option menu for locations that works much the same way, like the one in network-admin. (I hope it's sharing the list of locations with network-admin.)
Whether a list of objects should be presented in an option menu, a combo box, a listbox, or a text field with compulsory auto-complete depends not on the OS, but on the likely number of items and how prominent the list should be. For example, word processors (such as AbiWord) typically have an option menu or combo box for typeface selection in their toolbar, but a listbox for the same set of typefaces in their Font dialog.
I am against using the combobox for such a central element of the dialog, since it hides all other information at the first time.
Since -- as you pointed out -- most people will have only one display, I think it is quite prominent enough as an option menu, the same as in Windows. (And I know my Ascii art is dodgy, but I did intend it to be an option menu, not a combo box.)
Especially there is no indication to find the arrangement and graphics card action in the combobox. At the first time it will only show the name of a display - in the worst case even "Unknown".
Can you not even determine whether the primary display is an LCD or a CRT? Even saying "Primary display" would be better than "Unknown".
Additionally you have to think of systems with multiple cards.
Sorry, I don't yet understand the ratio of graphics cards to displays and why they need to be configured separately. Enlighten me. :-)
Please see my previous mails about the bad workflow of setting up a dual screen setup if the configuration is scattered on different dialogs or tabs.
As before, since most people will have only one display, I think more prominent would be too prominent, and would lead people to press for the separate simple+advanced GUIs that neither of us want.
Cheers -- Matthew Paul Thomas http://mpt.net.nz/
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