GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 130618
[UI-REVIEW] Move Character Details to separate dialog or switchable pane
Last modified: 2021-06-02 09:07:11 UTC
Using a notebook tab to display character details has the following problems: - Selecting something on one tab changes what is displayed on the other; this is non-standard and confusing behavior that the HIG says should be avoided[1]. - If the details are meant to be looked at only in rather rare circumstances, their current placement promotes them to much. - It's tedious to view the details of multiple characters in sequence since one always needs to switch back and forth between the two tabs. What I'd propose is to move the character details either to a separate dialog or to something like the switchable pane in the GNOME system monitor (i.e. the one viewable by clicking on "More Info >>"; in the case of the Character Map it would be positioned directly below the character table so that it takes part of the tables space when expanded). The advantage or disadvantage (depending how you look at it) of a separate dialog would be that it would give the character details less credit than a switchable pane would do. (The dialog would be accessible through something like `Map [a.k.a. File] -> Character Details' and I think would automatically update to always show the details of the currently selected characters. Having separate dialogs for separate characters would be more simple UI-wise but would have the disadvantage of beeing more difficult to handle when viewing the details of multiple characters.) [1] http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/1.0/controls.html#controls-notebooks
> - If the details are meant to be looked at only in rather > rare circumstances, their current placement promotes them > to much. I hope people will look at them often. > - It's tedious to view the details of multiple characters > in sequence since one always needs to switch back and > forth between the two tabs. Well, you can use ctrl+n / ctrl+p to go to the next and previous characters. > > What I'd propose is to move the character details either to > a separate dialog That doesn't sound pretty or convenient to me. > or to something like the switchable pane > in the GNOME system monitor (i.e. the one viewable by > clicking on "More Info >>"; in the case of the Character Map > it would be positioned directly below the character table so > that it takes part of the tables space when expanded). That's a possibility. I'm not totally convinced it would be prettier. Mockups might help convince me it's worth doing, but I don't consider it to be high priority, so a patch would be best.
> I hope people will look at them often. I think we are back to the core of our disagreement here. What are the use-cases you have in mind for which looking at the character details is a commonly needed action? > Well, you can use ctrl+n / ctrl+p to go to the next and > previous characters. Sorry, with "characters in sequence" I didn't just mean characters that are adjacent to each other in the character table but also sequences of characters that have multiple (sometimes even lots of) characters inbetween. And even when viewing multiple characters adjacent to each other in the character table you have to know (or at least make sure beforehand) that they actually *are* adjacent to each other and then have to navigate the list blindly. I quite frankly think that sucks! > That's a possibility. I'm not totally convinced it would be > prettier. Mockups might help convince me it's worth doing, > but I don't consider it to be high priority, so a patch > would be best. The reason I proposed the change wasn't actually because it was prettier but because I think it would be more usable ;-) Anyway, I'll attach two screenshots below so you get a better idea of what I'm talking about. (The mockups actually include some other changes I played around with earlier... ignore at your convenience.) In the future I think that the way the detail information is displayed should also be changed a little (in the mockup I just moved the current contents from the tab to the new location) but that's a secondary issue. If you were positive about the change I *might* actually think about creating a patch in the future. However, I'm almost completely occupied with work for university at the moment so if I'm creating such a patch at all it will likely take quite some time.
Created attachment 23933 [details] Proposed gucharmap ui with character details hidden.
Created attachment 23934 [details] Proposed gucharmap ui with character details visible.
Created attachment 105425 [details] different proposed ui * Use a GtkExpander to show/hide character details * change layout of character details * remove tabs * remove statusbar, since the character name and code point are displayed in the character details box * would probably be easier to implement using a bunch of GtkLabels, HBoxes, etc rather than a single big text box, but I'm too lazy to do all that in Gimp :) Thoughts? Obviously we're in UI freeze now but I could probably implement this for 2.24.
Whoops - in that mockup, the selected character in the character map should be Æ, not A.
Re-assign to default owner and QA.
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