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Bug 380080 - Text field at bottom of Preferences window is not useful
Text field at bottom of Preferences window is not useful
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: Gnumeric
Classification: Applications
Component: GUI
git master
Other All
: Normal minor
: ---
Assigned To: Jody Goldberg
Jody Goldberg
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2006-11-28 10:17 UTC by Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)
Modified: 2007-11-20 08:28 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) 2006-11-28 10:17:10 UTC
Gnumeric 1.7.0, Ubuntu 6.10

The text field at the bottom of each panel of the Preferences window is an interesting approach to providing inline help. However, several major problems cause it to be more confusing than useful.
*   It looks like a text field, for no good reason (similar to bug 122171).
*   It extends completely underneath the category list. This means that the
    selection in the category list affects both controls underneath it *and*
    controls to its right, which is very unusual.
*   It takes up a lot of space that could be used in more effective ways of
    making the Preferences more understandable. For example, without it there
    would be enough room to combine the "Windows" and "Screen" panels.
*   Most importantly, it never contains helpful text. The worst example is "The
    items on this page and its subpages are related to various gnumeric tools",
    closely followed by the two panels for which the field is completely empty.

I suggest the field be removed. When an explanatory sentence or two can make a panel more understandable (which may be true for one or two panels, but certainly not all of them), it should be included as an ad-hoc label in that panel, not as a text field.
Comment 1 Morten Welinder 2006-11-28 15:39:32 UTC
Clearly confusing.  Whatever the right look is, it has to be something
that doesn't look like you can edit anything there.
Comment 2 Andreas J. Guelzow 2006-11-29 05:08:48 UTC
Why would you want to combine the windows and screen panel? Most users will not need to use the screens panel, but the windows panel is more common. If you don't like the info screen, just remove it. You may notice that you can adjust its height.
Comment 3 Andreas J. Guelzow 2006-11-29 23:06:25 UTC
I like to point out that we are not the only Gnome Application that uses text fields that way:

evolution uses a field that looks like a text field as a non-editing are to display the selected e-mail message.

gthumb does it for comments associated with images.

epiphany's main display area is not editable but is really an edit field.

etc.
Comment 4 Andreas J. Guelzow 2007-11-20 08:28:58 UTC
This problem has been fixed in the development version. The fix will be available in the next major software release. Thank you for your bug report.