GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 568878
"magic spacebar" worst name ever -- and no useful context
Last modified: 2012-02-14 14:18:55 UTC
Evo 2.22.1 I was perusing the mail preferences today and came across a checkbox: [X] Enable Magic Spacebar WTF does that mean? Well, I clicked "Help" and while the checkbox was in the screenshot, there was no help text for it at all. It wasn't that I typed it into google and found this URL: http://library.gnome.org/users/evolution/stable/usage-mail-getnsend-read.html.en that I learned what it was. The help text for it is actually pretty good, and I don't doubt that it's probably made its way into more recent versions of the offline help. But if you're going to call it the "magic spacebar" in the preferences please at least add: (1) a tooltip and (2) a "(What's this?)" link next to it which pops up some context specific help only about that option.
Provide a better name. I also don't like the term.
I suggested a solution: provide inline context as to what the option actually does in lieu of a better name. I just tested with Evo 2.24.1.1 BTW, and the option is still undocumented despite appearing in the screenshot.
Well, you did not suggest a solution. At least not for the name itself, while your complaint is "magic spacebar worst name ever". Magic spacebar IS documented in the user docs: http://library.gnome.org/users/evolution/2.24/evolution.html#b17rgdac
(In reply to comment #3) > Well, you did not suggest a solution. At least not for the name itself, while > your complaint is "magic spacebar worst name ever". Whatever. > Magic spacebar IS documented in the user docs: > http://library.gnome.org/users/evolution/2.24/evolution.html#b17rgdac Yes, but the help section you link to isn't the page that comes up when you click the "Help" button on the preference page with the preference. I did learn what it was by finding this page, but only after typing the text into Google. The pref itself needs to be documented, and having a link to the section you reference would be helpful. But still, adding context to the pref pane itself would be most helpful, so you don't have to "context switch" by opening the help for just this one preference.
I'm linking here to an issue I wrote against Ubuntu on launchpad. My post is somewhat more constructive than some of the previous messages: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/evolution/+bug/573360 There is an option within Mail Preferences that says "Enable Magic Spacebar". In order to understand what this option does the user must click "Help", search for "Magic Spacebar", click the first result and they are finally provided with an explanation. All options within the preferences page should be self-explanatory, or in the rare cases that this is difficult, an easy way to get this extra information should be provided. This could be supplied via a tooltip or a help icon (?) that when clicked, shows further information about the option.
I think there is enough horizontal space in the preferences dialog to have the following label: [ ] Use space bar to jump to new/unread messages and to scroll through them.
I don't think the feature can be adequately and concisely described (and translated!) using a checkbox label. Better option is to link to the relevant section in the user documentation. [x] Enable Magic Spacebar [what's this?] <-- link
The option is not available anymore in the UI. The gconf (/apps/evolution/mail/display/magic_spacebar) / dconf key description says: "Enable this to use Space bar key to scroll in message preview, message list and folders." Closing as OBSOLETE.