GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 340860
adding new topics totally unobvious
Last modified: 2014-11-26 21:19:17 UTC
So, if you type a new topic, you get this little dropdown suggesting you can 'create topic 'foo''. In many themes the dropdown is totally subtle and unobvious. I just watched my girlfriend completely not see it and hit 'add' without selecting create topic. When she went to add the next bookmark, she was quite surprised that it wasn't there. So, two options to solve the problem (offhand, might be others): * make the dropdown more obvious * if a topic is in the topic entry, but doesn't exist, just create it on 'add'.
Yeah, I've done exactly the same thing, the problem is that the dropdown blends in with the rest of the dialogue, so you don't see it. Personally, I expected the second of the options above to happen automatically.
Hm, not so good :-( Peter, any ideas?
I agree, that's a bad usability bug. We have a few options: 1. add an icon to the action somehow, make it more visible 2. disable the "Add" button while the topic list is inconsistent 3. make topics auto-create and then auto-delete when empty as mpt suggested 4. topics auto-create as crispin suggested 5. indicate that the topic is not "real" yet (italics or red squiggly line) Of these, I think that options 1, 3 and 4 are the easiest to implement. But... The problem with 4 is that "typo" topics are automatically created, and there is no easy way to delete them. The problem with 3 is that topics which are only temporarily empty are deleted, making it hard for mouse-based users. The problem with 1 is that it just may not help that much. Note that previously the behaviour was "on enter, create the currently entered topic if it doesn't exist", but people objected to that. We might be able to implement 4 in the following way: - whenever the focus leaves the topic entry, extract the names - map as many as possible to existing topics (case-insensitive) - create new topics for the rest, and store the list with the dialog - when the dialog is closed, delete any of the new topics that are empty This still isn't perfect, but would work. Comments?
*** Bug 406398 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I think adding topics to the list when focus leaves the topic typing box will make the UI look jumpy to the user. (In reply to comment #0) > * if a topic is in the topic entry, but doesn't exist, just create it on > 'add'. That's what I'd suggest too. As for the problem with typo topics -- is there a way to merge topics? OTOH, I'd maybe expect to do that by dragging one topic onto another in the organize bookmarks dialog. Sorry for the dupe :)
I agree that missing topics should be autocreated on add. If there is a typo, well the user as to learn how to use his keyboard in the first place ;) and there is always the bookmark editing facility to correct that which is as simple as selecting all bookmark from one topic and drag them to the other. I don't know if the bookmark editor implements dragging a topic onto another yet but I think it would be cool to have. for the icon in the dropdown, maybe that would be feasible with libsexy. I think it's not a bad idea to have it anyway. One final note: I'd like to read the arguments of people that was against the autoadd topic method.
(In reply to comment #5) > (In reply to comment #0) > > * if a topic is in the topic entry, but doesn't exist, just create it on > > 'add'. > > That's what I'd suggest too. > +1 here, any progress in this direction ?
Unfortunately, not yet.
I'm using epiphany 2.18.1 in Ubuntu Feisty and when adding a bookmark, in the matching topics drop-down list it displays a «add %s» it's a hack in the epiphany's ubuntu version or it's in trunk already, so this bug can be closed?
No, this bug is still valid.
Nowadays it's just a matter of FIle → New topic, so I'm closing this report as fixed.