GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 246238
Consistent order of items in Format menu and toolbar of composition window
Last modified: 2008-06-22 22:15:44 UTC
Compose a message dialog - To open, choose File > New > Mail Message. 1. Format toolbar: Could the items in this toolbar be more logically ordered? So that the font items are all together and the paragraph items are all together. And also so that the sequence of items is the same sequence that is used in the menubar. So the order could be: [B] [I] [U] [S] [Font Size] [Font Color] | [Para Styles] [Para Align x 3] [Para Indent x 2] 2. Why is teletype (TT) on the format toolbar, but not in the Format > Style menu? I think generally the toolbar functions are a subset of options on the menubar, not the other way around. This bug blocks bug 246224.
Your report makes it sound like the order of that toolbar is much worse than it actually is. :) It looks to me like the only thing needed to make #1 happen is that the type option menu should be the first thing in the toolbar, and the font size option menu should come after font style items. #2 is an oversight, not a statement about the intended relationship between menus and toolbars. I agree with you that it should obviously be in the menu.
Re #1: The current order is: [Font Size] [Para Styles] [TT] [B] [I] [U] [S] | [Para Align x 3] | [Para Indent x 2] [Font Color] So the following needs to happen: a. Move Font Size to after the Strikethrough button. b. Move Font Color to after Font Size. c. Move Para Styles to after Font Color Re #2: If it is intended that [TT] will be in the toolbar, I'd suggest the following toolbar button order: [B] [I] [U] [TT] [S] [Font Size] [Font Color] | [Para Styles] [Para Align x 3] [Para Indent x 2]
its not a dialogue, its a window
Would the following toolbar orders be better?
Created attachment 44707 [details] Toolbars when editing HTML
Created attachment 44708 [details] Toolbars when editing plain text.
I find it hard to figure out a logical order to the items on these toolbars. The order in these screenshots is: HTML: [Para Styles] [Font Size] [Font Color] [B] [I] [U] [separator] [Para Align x 3] [separator] [Para Number] [Para Bullet] [Para Indent x 2] [separator] [Insert Object] Plain text: [Para Styles] [separator] [Para Align x 3] [separator] [Para Number] [Para Bullet] [Para Indent x 2] I think the most logical ordering is font-related items first, followed by paragraph-related items, then other items. So I would suggest the following ordering: HTML: [Font Size] [Font Color] [B] [I] [U] [separator] [Para Styles] [Para Align x 3] [Para Number] [Para Bullet] [Para Indent x 2] [separator] [Insert Object] Plain text: [Para Styles] [Para Align x 3] [Para Number] [Para Bullet] [Para Indent x 2] Note that I am also suggesting a separator only between the logical groups, that is font items, separator, paragraph items, separator, other items. However, this another separator between the paragraph alignment buttons and the numbering button might be useful to break up the sequence of buttons for the user, and enable them to learn them more quickly.
Any further thoughts on this? We're now (three years later) at an opportune time to change these sorts of things in the composer.
Folding this discussion into bug #408707, so it's all in one place. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 408707 ***