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Bug 411048 - Style (centered/fill screen/scaled/zoom/tiled) confusing without icons
Style (centered/fill screen/scaled/zoom/tiled) confusing without icons
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: gnome-control-center
Classification: Core
Component: [obsolete] Appearance
2.19.x
Other All
: Normal minor
: ---
Assigned To: Control-Center Maintainers
Control-Center Maintainers
: 590254 592856 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2007-02-23 01:46 UTC by L. David Baron
Modified: 2009-11-16 23:59 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: 2.19/2.20



Description L. David Baron 2007-02-23 01:46:07 UTC
Whenever I change my desktop background (which I admit isn't all that often, so I've forgotten from the previous time), I have trouble remembering the difference between the options for "Style" (Centered, Fill Screen, Scaled, Zoom, or Tiled) -- in particular, the difference between Scaled and Zoom (since I usually want Zoom).  There used to be icons illustrating the difference, and I wasn't confused back when they were present (although Zoom was added in bug 105231 only just before the icons were removed).  I think the icons should be added back.

Steps to reproduce:
 1. right click on desktop
 2. choose "Change Desktop Background"
 3. drop down the "Style" dropdown

Expected results: Icons appear next to the options (Centered, Fill Screen, Scaled, Zoom, or Tiled)

Actual results: no illustration of the options until after one of the options has been selected and the change has been applied (which takes a few seconds).

Other information:
It appears the code to display the icons was removed in revision 6323: http://svn.gnome.org/viewcvs/gnome-control-center?view=rev&revision=6323
Comment 1 Jens Granseuer 2007-03-01 20:21:35 UTC
Confirming. I always have to try them to know which is which. Not sure if this must be fixed through icons, or can be done by improving the wording (there some other bug about that IIRC).
Comment 2 Rodney Dawes 2007-03-01 20:43:18 UTC
I would definitely prefer changing the text over adding icons. If anyone can come up with much better names, then I would be glad to change things for 2.19. Or perhaps we can just add tooltips? The latter would be better for accessibility.
Comment 3 Jens Granseuer 2007-03-01 20:59:23 UTC
How would tooltips work in this case? Can you show separate tooltips for choices in a combobox? Explaining all the options in one tooltip is going to be hard.
Comment 4 Rodney Dawes 2007-03-01 21:20:43 UTC
One should be able to set tooltips on menuitems. This was very easily doable with GtkOptionMenu, as it directly used GtkMenu. I am not sure how one would do it with GtkComboBox though.
Comment 5 Thomas Wood 2007-08-25 23:14:46 UTC
It would be even better if we could use a preview rather than text, but of course this wouldn't work if we still used a combo box to select the option.
Comment 6 Thomas Wood 2008-01-13 18:39:26 UTC
I think Fill Screen, Scaled and Zoom are the similar options that could be confusing. How about naming them Stretched, Scaled and Cropped instead, as I think this more accurately describes what they do, rather than the effect they have.
Comment 7 Thomas Wood 2008-04-18 22:13:22 UTC
David, would changing the items to Stretched, Scaled and Cropped help solve your problem?
Comment 8 Jens Granseuer 2009-07-30 15:19:15 UTC
*** Bug 590254 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 9 Fabian Greffrath 2009-07-31 07:05:12 UTC
As the initiator of the duplicate bug #590254, I would also very much appreciate a more non-ambiguous wording like "Stretched", "Scaled" and "Cropped".
Comment 10 Jens Granseuer 2009-08-24 07:53:15 UTC
*** Bug 592856 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 11 rugby471 2009-08-24 10:15:17 UTC
"Tile", "Crop", "Center", "Scale", and "Stretch" is what has been recommended here:

https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/+bug/416605

(Also note the verb tense, this suggestion keeps the tense the same, whereas currently it is out of sync)
Comment 12 rugby471 2009-08-24 10:17:24 UTC
Sorry forgot to say in my last comment that the verb tense should be future as the are *going* to apply affect x to the wallpaper image, we have not done it already
Comment 13 rugby471 2009-08-26 18:49:40 UTC
Revised the suggestions from Launchpad, no more 'Crop' leaving it as Zoom per:

"Tile: Tiles images in a rectangular array to fill screen.
Zoom: Zooms image until it fits screen height or width
Center: Centers image, no scaling
Scale: Scales image until smallest dimension = screen height or width
Stretch: Scales image so that it is the size of the screen

If this is correct, "Crop" does not seem like a synonym for "Zoom"."

Final Suggestions:
"Tile", "Zoom", "Center", "Scale", and "Stretch"
Comment 14 Thomas Wood 2009-11-14 19:19:05 UTC
The suggestions sound good to me.

commit fc938f8ba943b350395636e763c792cdf2f6eb77
Author: Thomas Wood <thos@gnome.org>
Date:   Sat Nov 14 19:18:48 2009 +0000

    [appearance] update the background style option labels
    
    Clarify the background style options as per the suggestions in bug 411048
    by making all the descriptions the same tense and replacing "Fill screen"
    with "Stretch".
    
    Fixes https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=411048