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Bug 85673 - [ui-review][doc] Preferences dialog issues
[ui-review][doc] Preferences dialog issues
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: nautilus
Classification: Core
Component: Preferences
1.1.x
Other All
: Normal normal
: ---
Assigned To: Nautilus Maintainers
Nautilus Maintainers
: 76302 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks: 82707
 
 
Reported: 2002-06-17 18:19 UTC by Calum Benson
Modified: 2004-12-22 21:47 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Attachments
Patch to eel that adds a 'Cat_egories' label above the list of categories, and also fixes a minor alignment bug (2.94 KB, patch)
2002-07-08 19:59 UTC, Damon Chaplin
none Details | Review
Patch to nautilus to fix most of the rest (13.91 KB, patch)
2002-07-08 20:00 UTC, Damon Chaplin
none Details | Review

Description Calum Benson 2002-06-17 18:19:31 UTC
The following issues came out of the recent ui-review and are recommended
for fixing prior to GNOME 2.0.1:

- List should have a 'Categories:' label with mnemonic
- All preference panes should have a help button
Comment 1 Calum Benson 2002-06-17 18:24:33 UTC
Oops, forgot to add the comments on the individual categories:

View Defaults:

- s/Arrange Items/Arrange items (x2)
- s/Use tighter layout/Use compact layout
- s/Sort in reversed order/Sort in reverse
- s/View Defaults/Views

Appearance:

- Remove help text 'Click on a theme to .... '
- s/Add New Theme/Add Theme
- s/Nautilus Themes/Themes
- Needs mnemonics

Windows:

- s/status bar/statusbar
- s/sidebar/side pane
- s/in a seperate window/in a new window
- s/in new windows// - it is superfluous for options 2-5
- s/Opening New Windows/New Windows Display
- First option doesn't really fit with the other options - move it out
of the frame, and add new frame for it ('New Window Behavior")

Desktop & Trash:

- s/Use Nautilus to draw the desktop/Use Nautilus to draw the desktop
background
- s/Use your home folder as the desktop/use your home folder as the
desktop background
- s/Desktop/Desktop Background

Icon & List View:
- s/Properties window/Properties dialog
- Remove text in parenthesis - it will be in the help
- s/Show\/Hide/Show and remove 'Show' from each item
- s/Sorting Order/Sort
- s/Always list folders before files/Folders before Files

Icon captions:
- Remove help text

Sidebar Panels:
- s/Sidebar Panels/Side Pane
- s/Display [tab name] in sidebar/[tab name]
- s/Show only folders (no files) in the tree/Show folders only

Navigation:
- Suggestion removing entire category until/unless web browsing is
100% functional.  Until then, home in the toolbar should be directed
to user's home directory.

Speed Tradeoffs:
- s/Speed Tradeoffs/Performance
- s/Local Files Only/Local file only
- s/Don't .../Do not
- s/Show Count of Items in Folders/Show Number of Items in Folders

Comment 2 Luis Villa 2002-06-18 20:54:53 UTC
Adding keywords to all ui-review bugs in one mass change, sorry for the spam. It
would be very nice if the folks doing UI review stuff would be sure to add
'PATCH' to the bugs that have those. I'm (tentatively) not marking these 'high'
but the release team [having gotten approval from the docs and i18n people]
would like to see these in ASAP on the 2.0.1 branches, so that i18n folks can
start translating at their convenience.
Comment 3 Dave Bordoley [Not Reading Bug Mail] 2002-06-20 19:22:42 UTC
comments on navigation preferences:

The ability to change the home dir is crack rot regardless of
webbrowsing and should be removed as recommended(see bug 78891). Built
in bookmarks should be removed all together (see bug 74896) actually
bookmarks should be removed period but that's another issue.
Comment 4 Dave Bordoley [Not Reading Bug Mail] 2002-06-27 20:10:12 UTC
Calum:

Why not rename "speed tradeoffs" something like previewing since all
these prefs affect how nautilus decides what to preview. Seems like a
potentially more descriptive term for the preferences. What do you think?
Comment 5 Luis Villa 2002-06-27 20:33:07 UTC
OK, for the /nth/ time removing the home dir preference is not
'recommended' by anyone except yourself, Dave. Yes, lots of people
agree with you but yes, /lots/ of people disagree. Please don't treat
your own opinion as an edict from on high.
Comment 6 Dave Bordoley [Not Reading Bug Mail] 2002-06-27 20:42:14 UTC
it's recommended in the bug report. and alex agreed too. in fact the
only person on the list who disagreed was dave watson i believe...plus
those comments are my opinion, not me talking as a bug triager.

(daveb thinks he should add marks when making a personal opinion from
now on)...
Comment 7 Calum Benson 2002-06-28 14:52:58 UTC
"Speed tradeoffs" v. "Previewing"... hmm, have to say at first glance
that "Speed tradeoffs" still sounds more descriptive to me, although
I've never been mad keen on the term.  I'm sure I saw another
suggestion on the nautilus list a month or so ago that I thought at
the time might work better, but I forget what it was now :/
Comment 8 Luis Villa 2002-06-28 16:53:39 UTC
After¦some¦discussion¦with¦the¦release¦team,¦in¦order¦to¦get¦these¦in¦to¦2.0.1
and¦to¦not¦make¦the¦translators¦shoot¦us,¦these¦need¦to¦get¦in¦ASAP¦:)¦I'm
marking¦them¦'urgent'/2.0.1¦as¦a¦result;¦it¦would¦be¦greatly¦appreciated¦if
maintainers¦of¦the¦affected¦components¦can¦work¦on¦getting¦these¦patched¦ASAP¦so
that¦the¦translators¦can¦get¦cracking¦on¦them¦for¦the¦next¦release.¦[Subject,¦of
course,¦to¦maintainer¦agreement¦with¦the¦goals¦of¦the¦review¦:)¦
Comment 9 Luis Villa 2002-07-02 15:15:01 UTC
[Search for 'luis spamming' to catch every instance of this email.]
In order to better track Sun's bugs for Sun and Ximian's internal use, I've
added a temporary keyword to some bugs. I apologize for the spam, and for the
use of an additional keyword, but this is the best way for Sun to track 'it's'
bugs without interfering with the community's own triage and bug behavior. If
you have any questions or objections, please drop me a note at louie@ximian.com
or email bugmaster@gnome.org for more open discussion.
Comment 10 Juan Salaverria 2002-07-04 07:12:16 UTC
I'll like to start working on this, but I have a question, where it's
supposed to point the help buttons of each preference pane? Is there a
help on each item somewhere?
Comment 11 Damon Chaplin 2002-07-05 18:10:58 UTC
Yes, section 1.8.1 has subsections for each page, including screenshots.
I'm probably going to work on this today, unless you can get it done
very quickly!
Comment 12 Damon Chaplin 2002-07-05 18:24:39 UTC
Alex & Dave discussed this and decided:

 o they want to keep the help text in the brackets, as they don't
   think the user should have to view the help docs to understand
   the options.
 o they don't want to change 'Desktop' to 'Desktop Background' as they
   think 'Desktop' is a widely understood concept, and 'Desktop
   Background' is currently understood to be the background picture
   or colors.
 o they don't want Help buttons on each pane. Though they'd probably
   be OK with making the existing 'Help' button show the section
   corresponding to the current page. (Maybe that is what Calum
   meant.)
Comment 13 Calum Benson 2002-07-05 18:48:21 UTC
Eugene, any thoughts about Alex and Dave not wanting to remove the
text in parentheses (which explains that hidden files start with ".",
and backups end with "~")?  

Can you think of a better label for these two items that would convey
the same information but without using the parentheses, which I think
is what you're really objecting to?  As Damon points out, not every
application uses the "~" convention for its backup files, so removing
that additional information could easily leave the user confused.
Comment 14 Damon Chaplin 2002-07-08 19:59:32 UTC
Created attachment 9723 [details] [review]
Patch to eel that adds a 'Cat_egories' label above the list of categories, and also fixes a minor alignment bug
Comment 15 Damon Chaplin 2002-07-08 20:00:42 UTC
Created attachment 9724 [details] [review]
Patch to nautilus to fix most of the rest
Comment 16 Damon Chaplin 2002-07-08 20:14:54 UTC
Oops. I meant to change the 'View Defaults' category name to 'Views'
as well.

Some issues:

 o I removed the help text on the 'Appearance' page as suggested,
   though I'm not certain that is a good idea. When removing themes
   it is pretty useful.

 o I couldn't figure out how to remove the help text on the 'Icon
   Captions' page without leaving blank space instead, so I haven't
   done that.

 o The 'Side Panes' page looks very empty now.

 o I #ifdef'ed out the 'Navigation' page as suggested, and changed
   all uses of these preferences so that the home page is always
   the users $HOME, and that the system bookmarks are never shown.
   (I used #ifdef WEB_NAVIGATION_ENABLED around all this stuff)
Comment 17 Eugene O'Connor 2002-07-09 10:46:26 UTC
My reasons for suggesting this change were firstly, that I thought 
that the help was a better location for this information and 
secondly, that I wanted to remove the parentheses.

Do Alex and Dave want to keep the information in the parentheses in 
both cases? Is there any other way of marking hidden files than with 
a period at the start? I don't think I can rephrase these labels to 
avoid the parentheses, but filenames should be spelled as one word. 
So how about:

[] Show hidden files 
[] Show backup files (filenames that end with "~")
Comment 18 Eugene O'Connor 2002-07-09 11:47:53 UTC
I don't think that the "widely understood" concept of the desktop is 
very clear. What Alex and Dave are saying (I think) is: 

  desktop = Nautilus desktop background + Nautilus desktop background 
objects

But the terms "GNOME desktop" and "desktop" are often used to refer 
to the entire GNOME UI, not just the Nautilus parts. That is:

  desktop = desktop background + desktop background objects + panels 
+ windows + other workspaces

So there is a danger of  confusion here between the part of the 
desktop that Nautilus controls, and the GNOME desktop (that also 
includes windows, workspaces, panels, and so on). 

I suggested how to use these terms on the Preferences dialog in the 
following message:

http://lists.eazel.com/pipermail/nautilus-list/2002-April/008196.html

If we used "Use Nautilus to draw the desktop background and desktop 
background objects", how would that be?

I think that we can educate our users as to what we mean by desktop 
and desktop background, and the best way to do this is to use these 
terms consistently in the UI and in the documentation.
Comment 19 Dave Camp 2002-07-09 17:49:15 UTC
Damon, feel free to commit the eel change, and the nautilus patch with
two changes:

Keep the help text for the theme selector, I think you're right about
the remove text being helpful.

Change "New Windows Display" to "New Window Display"
Comment 20 Damon Chaplin 2002-07-09 21:22:13 UTC
OK. I've committed what Dave suggested.

Things not done (see above for reasons):

Appearance:
- Remove help text 'Click on a theme to .... '

Windows:
- s/Opening New Windows/New Windows Display
  We used 'New Window Display' instead here, to match the other
  frame 'New Window Behavior'.

Desktop & Trash:
- s/Use Nautilus to draw the desktop/Use Nautilus to draw the desktop
background
- s/Use your home folder as the desktop/use your home folder as the
desktop background
- s/Desktop/Desktop Background

Icon & List View:
- Remove text in parenthesis - it will be in the help

Icon captions:
- Remove help text


Comment 21 Dave Camp 2002-07-11 09:15:12 UTC
I committed a change to replace "file names" with "filenames", but I
kept the the parenthetical help text.

My rationale is that "hidden files" have a well-defined meaning for
macos and windows (a "hidden" flag), that is very different from its
meaning on unix (begins with a period).  I believe that users will
assume they know what a hidden file means, but they will be wrong. 
Because they will make the assumption that they know what it means,
they will not even look at the help text.

If they do look for help on how to make a file hidden, it will
probably be in the file properties dialog, not this properties page.  
Comment 22 Calum Benson 2002-07-17 11:47:20 UTC
*** Bug 76302 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 23 Dave Bordoley [Not Reading Bug Mail] 2002-07-18 12:26:41 UTC
As for the "Use nautilus to draw the desktop" preference

Why not define this preference based on its user visible effect. 
(most users have no clue what draw desktop means)

instead call it something like "enable desktop icons" as this more 
clearly defines the user visible effect of this preference. just an 
idea.
Comment 24 Eugene O'Connor 2002-08-06 10:45:56 UTC
User Guide docs updated to reflect the changes to the dialogs.
Comment 25 Luis Villa 2002-08-06 19:14:44 UTC
I'm closing; if there are any remaining issues they should be
discussed in unique bugs.