GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 117132
ui-review umbrella bug
Last modified: 2004-12-22 21:47:04 UTC
I can't actually test gnomemeeting properly because I'm behind a proxy but the following things are very obvious to me. Sorry for sounding so harsh: - When it can not make any connection, it gives me 2 errors dialogs, one about ldap and one about ils.seconix.com. - I see a callto:// URL in a combo. - I don't know what this is, even if I know what a URL is. Maybe a title would be nice. - I don't want to see a gnome-vfs-specific URL in the user-interface. - There is a little plug icon next to the URL box, but it has no tooltip so I don't know what it does. - The icons on the left are all very unclear. - The "ILS" icon and the "Hi_" icon have text in it. That won't internationalize. I don't even know what ILS means. - The bottom 2 icons have no tooltips so I have no idea what they are for. They are disabled but I have no idea how I might enable them. - Most apps have the toolbars horizontally on the top. Why is this one vertical at the left? - There is a large black and blue gnome-meeting logo in the middle of the screen. I gues this is where I might see a video of my chat partnet, but it's not clear. A title would help. - There is an empty text box under the logo. I have no idea what it is for. - I don't think the stuff in this main window uses HIG spacing. - Control Panel/Audio Settings uses icons instead of titles, for no good reason that I can think of. Ditto Video Settings. - The following dialogs do not use HIG spacing or Frame styles: - Tools/General History - Calls History - The Tools/Address Book dialog has S, A, and V columns. I don't know what they mean. Also, isn't "Callto" really an "Address" of some kind? - The dialogs have no close buttons. That seems strange. What if the WM manager doesn't provide a close button? - What's the point of having an option to hide the status bar?
Now I'm trying it on an open connection: - In the Address Book, I can't see how to add a server other than this seconix thing. I don't know what seconix is. - It seems that I have to double-click on the seconix item to actually connect and fill the box. That is very unobvious. - It seems that I have to double-click on an item to connect to that person. That is very unobvious. - Then there is a little bar bouncing around horizontally at the bottom-left of the main window. I guess maybe it's trying to connect. I'm only guessing. - Eventually the bar stops bouncing. Did it fail or succeed? I have no way to know.
this is very much about usability and GUI design. i'm therefore asking you now to do first: - check the FAQ on www.gnomemeeting.org about possible fixes on your "problems" - check wiki.seconix.com for the GnomeMeeting Documentation for possibles fixes about your "problems" if you can't figure out how the usability works, please get into contact with our documentation maintainers or report remaining problems here. thanks for not bashing more about gnomemeeting before doing proper reading. (and yes, there are some valueable points in the missing tooltips. but we're already trying to do progress with the docs in the wiki)
> this is very much about usability and GUI design. Erm, yes, that is the point. I'm trying to do your ui-review for you. > - check the FAQ on www.gnomemeeting.org about possible fixes on your "problems" > - check wiki.seconix.com for the GnomeMeeting Documentation for possibles fixes about your "problems" I don't see anything there that's remotely relevant. This is pretty much all simple HIG stuff. It should be easy to fix. > if you can't figure out how the usability works, please get into > contact with our documentation maintainers or report remaining > problems here. Dude, that's the whole point. It should be usable without reading a manual. And lots of these points are about simple consistency with the rest of GNOME. You've got to take this stuff seriously. > thanks for not bashing more about gnomemeeting before doing proper > reading. (and yes, there are some valueable points in the missing > tooltips. but we're already trying to do progress with the docs in > > the wiki) I'd love to see some usability review stuff in your wiki. Maybe you should give me a specific URL. At the moment, I think you completely miss the point of this bug report.
hehe, let's not discuss, who's missing, because i already wrote u the url of the wiki ;) http://wiki.seconix.com/ ..hope this is clear enough. well, and i _DO_ apprechiate the review. but we already _ARE_ very much trying to keep the GNOME HIG (have already been as one of the first GNOME2 apps at all). so there's no point in pissing at us with the tone you're writing. anyway, thanks for mentioning. we're just not usually collecting this in the bugzilla, but rather in the devel-mailinglist.
Kilian: Murray is doing another UI review as part of the 2.3.x release process. The one I discussed with Damien is also on its way - they're separate. This is part of GnomeMeeting's commitment to the Desktop release, it is not just random criticism. Plus, it's here in bugzilla because all of the UI Review bugs live here; there will also be discussion about this on the gnomemeeting list as well, I'm sure. Murray: Damien is away until August, so you won't actually see much in the way of results on any of this stuff until then. We will probably have to give GnomeMeeting an extra week or so to integrate UI Review fixes (and I would STRONGLY encourage someone to have patches ready for Damien when he gets back).
Kilian, UI reviews are done in bugzilla, maybe Murray could have split this into more bugs, but that would have been flooding. Most of the recommendations Murray did can be fixed within a couple of minutes. And Murray is doing a UI review for one good reason, Damien wanted gnomemeeting in the desktop release. Unless basic things like this aren't fixed, there's no way it will ever get into that release. Pointing to the documentation is OK if we were talking about a command-line application. And finally, being an application built on top of the GNOME libraries doesn't give you HIG super-powers instantly, you have to work on it.
Sorry for not explaining what a ui-review is. I did post this URL to the gnomemeeting mailing list which should have made it a bit more obvious. You might find this URL interesting: http://www.gnome.org/start/2.3/ui-review/index.html
sorry, if you were mistaken. i was not expecting *official* GNOME review to take place without being done by a @gnome.org email. so my thoughts were this was the regular bashing about gnomemeeting being whatever imperfect, like always. i understand this is important, and i apprechiate the noting of the points (even if many of them have been discussed earlier with the HIG team). i guess damien will be able to fix this as of 2.8.03 (or the week after) when he's done reading through his emails. however i stand with jdub that having fixes ready would be nice. ;))
Anybody can, and should, do ui-review. Not many people have gnome.org email addresses, by the way. Added the easy-fix keyword to encourage patches.
By the way, if you have URLs for any of these previous ui-review discussions then that would help.
I'm bumping this up to "Minor" to be consistent with other ui-review bugs.
Hello to all, I'm still on holidays until next week, so I won't be able to take part to the discussion. Murray, I suggest you to install 0.98, it seems to me that most of the addressbook-related UI problems have been fixed with this release. There is one point here that should be discussed further : - h323 and sip (in the near future) are standardized URLs. Having a VoIP application that doesn't support them in the GUI sound like browsing without using http at all, for example.
OK, here are my comments about your remarks when needed. First of all thanks a lot for having taken the time to do that review. Comments inline, please do comment further if you feel it is required : ** "- When it can not make any connection, it gives me 2 errors dialogs, one about ldap and one about ils.seconix.com." It happens when you are not connected to the internet and when it tries to register you to the users directory. In 0.98, you only get one popup indicating you that you couldn't be registered in the directory. ** "- I see a callto:// URL in a combo. - I don't know what this is, even if I know what a URL is. Maybe a title would be nice." ok "- I don't want to see a gnome-vfs-specific URL in the user-interface." See my comment above. It is not gnome-vfs specific, but standardized URLs that all good VoIP apps have to support. "- There is a little plug icon next to the URL box, but it has no tooltip so I don't know what it does." ok "- The icons on the left are all very unclear." If you have suggestions that I can forward to Jakub, don't hesitate. "- The "ILS" icon and the "Hi_" icon have text in it. That won't internationalize. I don't even know what ILS means." Same comment here, but notice the ILS thing is "fixed" in 0.98. It is replaced by an addressbook permitting you to call "online contacts on servers" or "local contacts in your groups" "- The bottom 2 icons have no tooltips so I have no idea what they are for. They are disabled but I have no idea how I might enable them." Just be in a call. Problem is that tooltips are not active when buttons are unsensitive. On another hand, I think that the HIG recommends to unsensitive things when they are not usable, but I can be wrong. "- Most apps have the toolbars horizontally on the top. Why is this one vertical at the left?" To optimize space. "- There is a large black and blue gnome-meeting logo in the middle of the screen. I gues this is where I might see a video of my chat partnet, but it's not clear. A title would help." ok "- There is an empty text box under the logo. I have no idea what it is for." Needs to be replaced indeed. (That's for the remote user name) "- I don't think the stuff in this main window uses HIG spacing." Right, needs to be fixed. "- Control Panel/Audio Settings uses icons instead of titles, for no good reason that I can think of. Ditto Video Settings." Problem is also to optimize space. Is there some recommendations against icons in that case? I don't really imagine text in that case, but I'm ready to change if required. Notice that text uses more space. "- The following dialogs do not use HIG spacing or Frame styles: - Tools/General History - Calls History" Can you point me to the respective section? That kind of things can easily be fixed. "- The Tools/Address Book dialog has S, A, and V columns. I don't know what they mean. Also, isn't "Callto" really an "Address" of some kind?" Any suggestion? Like no title at all? "- The dialogs have no close buttons. That seems strange. What if the WM manager doesn't provide a close button?" All the dialogs I tried here do have close buttons. Can you give examples? "- What's the point of having an option to hide the status bar?" None, you are right. "- In the Address Book, I can't see how to add a server other than this seconix thing. I don't know what seconix is." I think things are cleared in 0.98, can you try? "- It seems that I have to double-click on the seconix item to actually connect and fill the box. That is very unobvious." Same here. Notice there is a "Refresh" button to refresh the server listing content. "- It seems that I have to double-click on an item to connect to that person. That is very unobvious." Right-click also opens a menu. 0.98 adds a generic menu to the dialog. Please comment. "- Then there is a little bar bouncing around horizontally at the bottom-left of the main window. I guess maybe it's trying to connect. I'm only guessing. - Eventually the bar stops bouncing. Did it fail or succeed? I have no way to know." You can check the calls history, the statusbar, the general history. All of them should contain information. If they don't, then it is a bug, but I can't reproduce it here. PS: I do not try to go against the remarks, I think all of them are constructive, but some of them need further discussion with the other developers/HIG people while others have been fixed in 0.98 (perhaps is it not enough yet, I hope you will be able to tell me). It seems the vertical toolbar is for example a common problem even though nobody has had problem with it in 2 years of existence of GnomeMeeting. Again, thanks for this.
I will try to build the new version. It is difficult to build gnomemeeting because of the dependencies. I'm glad that some stuff seems to be fixed already. > Problem is that tooltips are not active when buttons are unsensitive. Maybe you should open a GTK+ bug about that. By the way, are all of the toolbar items' functions available also via menu items. They should be, and that would make the obscure toolbar items less important. >> "- The following dialogs do not use HIG spacing or Frame styles: >> - Tools/General History >> - Calls History" > > Can you point me to the respective section? That kind of things can > easily be > fixed. See http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/1.0/layout.html#window-layout-spacing >> "- The dialogs have no close buttons. That seems strange. What if the >> WM manager doesn't provide a close button?" > > All the dialogs I tried here do have close buttons. Can you give > examples? Do you mean GTK+ close buttons or WM close buttons. I did not see any in the dialogs mentioned above. >> "- The Tools/Address Book dialog has S, A, and V columns. I don't know >>what they mean. Also, isn't "Callto" really an "Address" of some kind?" > > Any suggestion? Like no title at all? I don't know what S, A, and V are, so I can not recommend anything. "Address" sounds better than "CallTo" to me. At least it's a real word that can be translated. > You can check the calls history, the statusbar, the general history. All of them > should contain information. If they don't, then it is a bug, but I can't reproduce it here. I really think it should give me an alert dialog when an error happens. This isn't server software where I should look in a log.
i'm wondering how come you still need to build yourself and still complain about deps.. we're offering packages for every major distro on www.gnomemeeting.org ... please tell me which weird distro you're using, that you can't use any of our packages. those building themselves usually do that for they want to patch something, but not to see the ready-to-run binary.. ;) btw. there's even more to get at http://snapshots.seconix.com/
Kilian: Because part of our responsibility to the GNOME Desktop release is to have modules that always build. The two most widely used systems for this are jhbuild (CVS) and GARNOME (tarballs). If we can't build GnomeMeeting because it needs extremely bleeding edge, difficult to build dependencies, that badly affects our ability to do build testing, and even bug testing. I've been trying to inspire someone to make pwlib/openh323 garballs for GARNOME, but it hasn't happened yet.
OK, I have installed from those RPMs now (I gave up installing openh323 from source). > In 0.98, you only get one popup indicating > you that you couldn't be registered in the directory. It might be nice if that said "Please check your network connection.". Just a thought. > but notice the ILS thing is "fixed" in 0.98. It is replaced by > an addressbook permitting you to call "online contacts on servers" > or "local contacts in your groups" OK, the icon is better, but still very unclear. I guess it's not a big deal because the tooltip is informative. > Right-click also opens a menu. 0.98 adds a generic menu to the > dialog. Please comment. Yes, that seems better. I still think that a "Call" or "Connect" button might be useful as well. After all, that's probably the number one thing that people want to do. As mentioned already, these dialogs definitely have no close button: - Tools/General History - Calls History" The obscure S, A, and V thing in the Address Book seems to be completely removed now. I guess that's good. So, well done, the new version is an improvement, but there is still some simple stuff still to do. Doing the simple stuff will make it easier to concentrate on improving the UI even more in future. I would like to help you out with patches, but I will have very little cvs access in the next couple of weeks.
>> In 0.98, you only get one popup indicating >> you that you couldn't be registered in the directory. > It might be nice if that said "Please check your network connection.". > Just a thought. Also, that dialog should probably mention gnome-meeting somewhere, maybe in the title. It appears regularly when gnome-meeting is running in the notification area.
Hello, I've read your bug report and pretty much agree with it. HIG compliance is put on my high-priority list for 1.0. I think 0.98 is perhaps already enough for 2.4, and compared to 0.96, but I'm still motivated to improve usability of things. Notice that Christopher Warner proposed himself to help me with HIG stuff and we decided to replace the vertical toolbar and use an editable EggToolbar instead, but horizontally. I think I will mail the usability ml when we start implementing it, I also have a few questions about "sound events". Btw, you are right, there are no GTK "Close" buttons, I thought you meant wm close buttons and I didn't know they were mandatory, but I think it is a good idea. PS; Ill try to find a new job, then buy a new PC, so there is hope for openh323/pwlib garballs once I have a powerful enough PC to compile the whole garnome :)
> I think 0.98 is perhaps already enough for 2.4 Actually, I think that gnomemeeting might look very out-out-place without these simple changes. But that's just my personal opinion. > we decided to replace the vertical toolbar and use an editable >EggToolbar That, however, cannot happen in the 2.4 branch because it would be a new feature. > there are no GTK "Close" buttons, I > thought you meant wm close buttons and I didn't know they were mandatory I'm not sure that they are. It just seems like a practical problem to me.
OK, so you propose me to fix the simple stuff like : - alignment and spacing in the main window - add close buttons in the various dialogs - ? and to release 0.98.1 ? Is it possible for you to mail me a list of things you think should absolutely be changed for 2.4? I'll work on it this week. Notice that I would like to not break strings (I don't want to wait for translators).
> OK, so you propose me to fix the simple stuff like Well, yes, I would like that. I also think - The use of the HIG frame style is very necessary to look GNOME-like. - The error dialog needs to say it's GnomeMeeting that's complaining. Otherwise we are going to get a lot of confused people in bugzilla. > Is it possible for you to mail me a list of things you think should > absolutely be changed for 2.4? I would prefer to keep this in bugzilla. And no one person can say what _must_ be done. However, I will personally be happy if these simple HIG changes are done. > I don't want to wait for translators). String freeze is on August 4th. Why would you freeze your strings earlier? Thanks for all the effort.
Many GnomeMeeting translators are non-GNOME translators, that's a problem I think. I'll fix the simple stuff today, I have 1 hour "free" now.
Working on this bug report is difficult, currently some of the items in question no longer exist. From reading I don't believe that the latest version of GnomeMeeting is being used. "- The use of the HIG frame style is very necessary to look GNOME-like." According to the HIG what is being requested here has been deprecated. I agree that the GTK close buttons are really not required. "The obscure S, A, and V thing in the Address Book seems to be completely removed now. I guess that's good." It hasn't been removed, however this is something that will be discussed so we have a better idea on how to explain the Status areas. ">> "- The following dialogs do not use HIG spacing or Frame styles: >> - Tools/General History >> - Calls History" >" Again, according to the HIG the actual frame styles in use in General History have been deprecated. Also spacing wise I don't see a problem with any of those windows. As of now for us to have a better idea of what needs to be done usability wise with GnomeMeeting for a stable and usable 1.00 release we need a complete usability review of the 0.98 version. Currently, from the above it sounds like the reviewer is having problems getting 0.98 installed. Help is available here irc.gnome.org/#gnomemeeting several people are prepared to offer support to the reviewer with getting the latest version of GnomeMeeting installed, from source or from one of the many packages. Also the HIG is contradictory is some places and I will make that a point to bring up those issues at a later date. If there is anything else to add after a complete 0.98 review has been done that will be great. If the usability team, or the current usability reviewer doesn't have the time or simply the resources don't exist. Damien and myself will try to do our best to follow the HIG when it can be followed and in the event that it can't be followed we will mail the usability list for the appropriate course of action. Thanks to everyone who has supported a more usable GnomeMeeting. Christopher Warner
> According to the HIG what is being requested here has been deprecated. No, I don't think so. Do you have a URL to support that statement? > As of now for us to have a better idea of what needs to be done > usability wise with GnomeMeeting for a stable and usable 1.00 release > we need a complete usability review of the 0.98 version. No, complete would be good, but something is better than nothing. The changes suggested here are quite simple to implement and I see no argument against them. > Currently, > from the above it sounds like the reviewer is having problems getting 0.98 installed. No, as I say, I installed 0.98 from RPMs. Earlier comments here are based on an earlier version, but the later conclusions are based on imporvements in the newer version. I am capable of making mistakes, but that is no reason to ignore everything. > Also the HIG is contradictory is some places and I will make that a > point to bring up those issues at a later date. I don't see where it is contradictory for these suggestions. Generic criticism of the HIG does not belong in this bug report. See the list of HIG bugs at the bottom of this page: http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/
"No, I don't think so. Do you have a URL to support that statement? " http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/1.0/controls.html#controls-frames Figure 6.30. Traditional frame style, using borders (deprecated) "No, complete would be good, but something is better than nothing. The changes suggested here are quite simple to implement and I see no argument against them." No, there is no argument against them except for the fact that some of those items don't exist in 0.98. The ones that do I've already pointed out mainly the SAV stuff and then there are other areas which weren't discussed in the above that we are aware of. Including some buttons that need alignment in the prefs dialog. "No, as I say, I installed 0.98 from RPMs. Earlier comments here are based on an earlier version, but the later conclusions are based on imporvements in the newer version. I am capable of making mistakes, but that is no reason to ignore everything." Then your latest version has problems that should be addressed. Everyone makes mistakes that doesn't mean we plan to ignore everything. As said previously we will do all we can to be inline with the current version of the HIG, we want to have a usable GnomeMeeting as much as everyone else does. "I don't see where it is contradictory for these suggestions. Generic criticism of the HIG does not belong in this bug report. See the list of HIG bugs at the bottom of this page: http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig" There was no generic criticism made. The statement was made that it was contradictory and that it would be addressed at a later date. It's not later yet and that is hardly criticism. I'm not trying to be confrontational, you are approaching this as if that's the case. We just want a usable GnomeMeeting and the report above isn't really helping currently. Again, some of those problems don't exist in 0.98 and the ones that do are being addressed.
> "No, I don't think so. Do you have a URL to support that statement? " > http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/1.0/controls.html#controls -frames > Figure 6.30. Traditional frame style, using borders (deprecated) That's the whole point. There shouldn't be any borders, etc. It is trying to help you by showing you what _not_ to do. > No, there is no argument against them except for the fact that some of those items don't exist in 0.98. Does this have anything to do with the list of things that I said I think are really important?: - alignment and spacing in the main window - add close buttons in the various dialogs (I could be very wrong about this) - The use of the HIG frame style is very necessary to look GNOME-like. - The error dialog needs to say it's GnomeMeeting that's complaining. Otherwise we are going to get a lot of confused people in bugzilla. > As said previously we will do all we can to be inline with the current version of the HIG Great. Thanks. >We just want a usable GnomeMeeting and the report above isn't really helping currently. I disagree. I think most of the requests are simple, relevant, and easy. I have summarised the top-priority stuff for you again above. UI improvement, like all improvement, is a gradual process. Sorry, for sounding confrontational, but it would not have been right for the last comment to look like a conclusion that there was nothing else to do now.
Hello Murray, As I said, we will fix those suggestions, we want to do it, and we will do it. I would like to do it now because I'll leave for 2 days tomorrow and the good thing would be to have changes in before next monday. However, in some cases we don't really know what to do or why the current situation breaks the HIG. Btw, it is very very difficult to discuss this using bugzilla when there is such a long list of things and you can not add comments inside exisiting reports but only at the end. I propose here to take each of the points one after the other and to see with you what to do. -- "- When it can not make any connection, it gives me 2 errors dialogs, one about ldap and one about ils.seconix.com." In 0.98, there is only one error dialog indicating it failed. In 0.98 those error dialogs have finally been HIGified. I propose to let this as it is currently. => FIXED -- "- I see a callto:// URL in a combo. - I don't know what this is, even if I know what a URL is. Maybe a title would be nice. - I don't want to see a gnome-vfs-specific URL in the user-interface." As already stated, URLs are needed here just as they are required in a browser. VoIP calls are always established using URLs (callto, h323, or sip in the sip case). The URL is in a toolbar, we tried to put a "URL:" label in front of the combo but it doesn't look good at all. However, we have put a tooltip on the button on the right, explaining that the user should fill in an URL and click. Is it ok like that? => FIXED ? -- "- There is a little plug icon next to the URL box, but it has no tooltip so I don't know what it does." => FIXED -- "- The icons on the left are all very unclear." I'll communicate that to Jimmac (who has drawn those icons) to see what we can do here. => WILL FIX for 1.00 -- "- The "ILS" icon and the "Hi_" icon have text in it. That won't internationalize. I don't even know what ILS means." We tried to replace all ILS occurences by "Users directory" in 0.98, so I guess it is fixed. The icon has been replaced by the "addressbook" icon of Evolution." I guess we can consider this as fixed. => FIXED -- "- The bottom 2 icons have no tooltips so I have no idea what they are for. They are disabled but I have no idea how I might enable them." Already discussed. => WON'T FIX, WILL ASK TO OWEN -- "- Most apps have the toolbars horizontally on the top. Why is this one vertical at the left?" That was in order to optimize space. But we will change that to an unique horizontal EggToolbar which will permit to users to add more actions to the toolbar like call hold, call transfer and such. => WILL FIX (for 1.00) -- "- There is a large black and blue gnome-meeting logo in the middle of the screen. I gues this is where I might see a video of my chat partnet, but it's not clear. A title would help." We tried adding a title, it looks really bad. But it is pretty common to videoconferencing software to have their video placed like this. I don't think a title is required here, really. => WON'T FIX, but you can convince me. -- "- There is an empty text box under the logo. I have no idea what it is for." To indicate the remote user name when you are connected. We have replaced that by a pure label. Not yet committed though. => FIXED -- "- I don't think the stuff in this main window uses HIG spacing." You have to be more specific here on what requires to be changed. Using exact HIG spacing here is pretty hard as the window dynamically resizes to the exact size of the displayed video. However, I'm really ready to work on this but as we are very limited in time, I would be very grateful if you could tell me what has to be changed exactly. => WILL FIX -- "- Control Panel/Audio Settings uses icons instead of titles, for no good reason that I can think of. Ditto Video Settings." As you can see, you can open the Control panel with the Text Chat being closed. Our main goal is to minimize the space used by GnomeMeeting so that you can videoconference easily while being working on other things. We can replace the icons by a title, but in that case we don't have room anymore for the sliders. So, is it really required? Do you have a suggestion? => WILL FIX -- "- The following dialogs do not use HIG spacing or Frame styles: - Tools/General History - Calls History" The only thing I see to change here is to remove the frame in the general history. I don't see what's wrong with the calls history. I will also fix the spacings in the prefs window. Any comment? -- "- The Tools/Address Book dialog has S, A, and V columns. I don't know what they mean. Also, isn't "Callto" really an "Address" of some kind?" => WILL FIX -- "- The dialogs have no close buttons. That seems strange. What if the WM manager doesn't provide a close button?" Is it necessary for all windows to have "Close" buttons? I think having a GTK Close button would look weird in the 2 histories for example. -- "- What's the point of having an option to hide the status bar?" => WILL FIX -- "- In the Address Book, I can't see how to add a server other than this seconix thing. I don't know what seconix is." => FIXED in 0.98 -- "- It seems that I have to double-click on the seconix item to actually connect and fill the box. That is very unobvious." => FIXED in 0.98 -- "- It seems that I have to double-click on an item to connect to that person. That is very unobvious." => FIXED in 0.98 -- "- Then there is a little bar bouncing around horizontally at the bottom-left of the main window. I guess maybe it's trying to connect. I'm only guessing." There is a message in the status bar "Calling XXX" => NOTHING TO FIX -- "- Eventually the bar stops bouncing. Did it fail or succeed? I have no way to know." There is a message in the status bar "Calling XXX" => NOTHING TO FIX -- "- The error dialog needs to say it's GnomeMeeting that's complaining. Otherwise we are going to get a lot of confused people in bugzilla." Is adding "GnomeMeeting - XXXX" in the title the way to do it? I'm a bit confused because the HIG tells to not use titles in error dialogs... What can we do? -- My conclusion is that there is relatively few to fix, but I still need your comments and help on some items.... Thanks for your patience! You can however see that I've done my best to follow the HIG and be usable most of the time...
There really is _no_ need to repeat previous stuff that we have all already agreed is fixed, and I am confident that you have this under control. This stuff is not complicated and we don't need to have a long conversation about it. I will try to respond to your new questions here, but I have tried to keep this focused by giving you a summary of important remaining stuff. I will do it again at the end of this comment: > "- I don't think the stuff in this main window uses HIG spacing." > > You have to be more specific here on what requires to be changed. > Using exact HIG spacing here is pretty hard as the window dynamically > resizes to the exact size of the displayed video. However, I'm really > ready to work on this but as we are very limited in time, I would be very grateful if you could tell me what has to be changed exactly. Spacing/Borders: http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/1.0/layout.html#window- layout > "- The following dialogs do not use HIG spacing or Frame styles: > - Tools/General History > - Calls History" > > The only thing I see to change here is to remove the frame in the > general history. I don't see what's wrong with the calls history. I > will also fix the spacings in the prefs window. Any comment? See link above. > "- The dialogs have no close buttons. That seems strange. What if the WM manager doesn't provide a close button?" > > Is it necessary for all windows to have "Close" buttons? I think > having a GTK Close button would look weird in the 2 histories for > example. As I said, I'm not sure. I'll ask on the list. The best link I can find so far is this: http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/1.0/windows.html#preferenc e-windows > "- The error dialog needs to say it's GnomeMeeting that's complaining. > Otherwise we are going to get a lot of confused people in bugzilla." > > Is adding "GnomeMeeting - XXXX" in the title the way to do it? I'm a > bit confused because the HIG tells to not use titles in error > dialogs... What can we do? Yes, http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/1.0/windows.html#alert- windows "Alert windows have no titles," But in this case there is no main application window that the alert can stay above. It would clearly make the alert far more usable to mention GnomeMeeting in the dialog. I guess the HIG should talk about alerts from apps running in the background. I have added HIG bug #118750. Summary: - Alignment and spacing in the main window (and others - see link above) - The use of the HIG frame style. - The error dialog needs to say it's GnomeMeeting that's complaining. - Add close buttons in the various dialogs (I could be very wrong about this one. Ignore if you like)
I'll repeat myself again. "- Alignment and spacing in the main window (and others - see link above)" I read this again and again, and I still do not see what to change in the case of GnomeMeeting. The example there is given for a preferences window. Of course, I can put a 6 pixels border around the control panel, but that is really the only thing I see I can do. "- The use of the HIG frame style." See my comments above, I don't see what to change above except removing the frame for the general history. Your comments seem to indicate there is far more to change, but after having read the corresponding HIG parts, I still don't know. "- The error dialog needs to say it's GnomeMeeting that's complaining." Placing that in the text is pretty hard to do and will break many strings, but I will do it. I'm ready to do my best, but if you see HIG breakage where I don't see it, there is nothing I can do. The Chapter 8 is pretty hard to read, and after having read it many times, I don't see what I can change in the main window.
ok I'm working on things now. I'll commit to CVS and ask you for another review this afternoon. Thanks!
> I can put a 6 pixels border around the control panel, but that is really the only thing I see I can do. Yes, that might be all that you need to do. I think there might be some spacing between the controls to correct, but I'll leave that to you. > I don't see what to change above except removing the frame for the general history. Your comments seem to > indicate there is far more to change No, this really is simple. The Frame should have no border, an indent, and a bold title. The HIG explains it better than me. You might look at the control panel for good examples of HIGified windows. The difference is clear, but easy to achieve. > Placing that in the text is pretty hard to do and will break many > strings, but I will do it. Thank you. It really is up to you to decide whether my suggestions make sense. But I really don't think it's appropriate for a GNOME module to have a different freeze schedule than the other GNOME modules. I'm sure you have your reasons - that's just my position and there's no point in us arguing over it. > if you see HIG breakage where I don't see it, there is nothing I can do. I think you are just expecting this to be more difficult than it is. > The Chapter 8 is pretty hard to read, Yes, I don't like the structure of the HIG, and I find it too verbose. If I have time one day I will try to improve it. This stuff needs to be as clear as possible. Thank you.
Unfortunately I can't build from source because - I have no cvs access. - I can't build a new-enough openh323 from source even with garnome. (I'm not complaining - I know it's difficult.) So it will be hard for me to review your changes. You could make screenshots if you would really like me to see them. Thanks.
"But I really don't think it's appropriate for a GNOME module to have a different freeze schedule than the other GNOME modules." I don't plan to have a different freeze schedule here. I'll try to get all strings fixed for monday and warn translators who are not part of the GNOME team. I think that having for example "GnomeMeeting can't open the video device" instead of "The video device can't be opened" is indeed better. -- "I think you are just expecting this to be more difficult than it is." I think too that's the case. I'm still working on things, it should be ready at worse this afternoon. Thanks for your suggestions, I think there was just a major misunderstanding on what do at first, but I'm now working on it (not that I may do that from here, but that's the only way to get things ready for the freeze :)
You can see the screenshots at http://www.seconix.com/murray/ I did my best to respect the HIG spacing where possible (I'm not convinced it is always possible but well). I'm not sure I fully understand the HIG, so if you see other things to change, just tell me.
Thanks. This is all improvement. It's already looking more GNOME- like. There is room for more UI-Review next time, but this is enough for now. I have a some minor comments. Feel free to ignore them. > http://www.seconix.com/murray/3.png I think this needs a larget border, like this: http://www.seconix.com/murray/2.png > http://www.seconix.com/murray/11.png I guess this is where the S, A, and V column titles were. Now there are none, so it's really unclear what the columns are. > "- There is an empty text box under the logo. I have no idea what it > is for." > > To indicate the remote user name when you are connected. We have > replaced that by a pure label. Not yet committed though. Why can't you add a "Connected to user:" label, or something similar?
ok, I've changed the border and also added back the "S / A / V" column names. The problem is that if we put "Audio Capable" instead of "A" the column looks too huge compared to what is in it. We'll see if we find a better solution. I have a question, look this : http://nalf.ath.cx/~fabrice/gnomemeeting/fab2.png and http://www.seconix.com/murray/fab2.png Where would you place that button? (I don't think the HIG mentions anything about that) Same question for : http://www.seconix.com/murray/fab1.png (I think the button there is right placed as the HIG says to place it after the group of controls)
I don't think it makes any great difference. That whole dialog is bad for usability because the whole /dev/ thing is unpleasant. It's something for the future. > http://www.seconix.com/murray/fab1.png I don't speak French well, but I guess that's an Apply button. I see no reason for an Apply button there. Preferences should be instant- apply most of the time: http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/1.0/windows.html#instant- apply You will see good examples of this in the GNOME control center.
The whole /dev thing is unpleasant, but that is the best we can do. OSS devices only return names for mixers, not for sound devices and there is not always an exact correspondance between mixers and devices. Instant-apply is used everywhere in GnomeMeeting, but there are places in an application where it is not possible to use Instant Apply like for example in this dialog in the screenshot (I won't enter into technical details but there are a few controls that can't use the instant apply scheme in gnomemeeting like ILS data, or gatekeeper data, both similar to the proxy setting presented in the HIG). The HIG explains to use an explicit Apply button below the group of controls in that case. I don't think I'm against the HIG there. You can close that bug report when you consider that things are ok.
This seems like enough for now. Thank you. I hope the 2.5 UI Review will be less of a surprise and hopefully more in-depth.
I'll ask to Calum to do an in-depth review before the 1.00 release so that we have more time to fix things and discuss them. Time was short due to holidays. I guess I will also print a working copy of the HIG to read it completely. Thanks for the report and for your patience :)
> I'll ask to Calum to do an in-depth review before the 1.00 release When is this 1.00 release? There can be almost no UI Change for GNOME 2.4 after August 4th: http://www.gnome.org/start/2.3/ UI changes would have to happen in a branch for GNOME 2.6. Of course it is never too early to decide what changes would be nice. You might also want to ask on desktop-devel-list about suitable version numbering for gnomemeeting.
Actually changes for 1.0 will go in HEAD, while bugfixes for GNOME 2.4 will go in the gnome 2.4 branch. I won't touch the GNOME 2.4 branch very much, except for bugfixes but 0.98 has been released a while ago and we have had very few bug reports for this release, which is a good sign. After 1.0 we will follow the same numbering scheme as the linux kernel. 1.0 is planned for release around oktober. Perhaps we will already be at GnomeMeeting 1.4 for GNOME 2.6. Does that seem to be correct and in adequacy to the GNOME policy for you?
As I said, you should probably ask on destkop-devel-list. I don't really know.