GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 595341
No option to get back icons in dialog action buttons
Last modified: 2010-09-22 15:29:30 UTC
The default changed to not have icons in dialog action buttons. I think at very least we should have a checkbox in the interface tab to change that. The gconf key is /desktop/gnome/interface/buttons_have_icon. I make this bug blocker because GNOME 2.28.0 can't be released without either reverting to old behaviour (showing icon by default) or at least make it configurable.
I agree. As I said on bug #592756, making a such big UI change without giving to users the tool to revert it is none sense.
I also agree that changing the look and removing the interface preference tab at the same time is a bad idea. I stil haven't seen any research (or even a poll) that hints that removing the icons is what users would prefer, but I feel that the responsible persons don't want to roll that back. So *please* lets keep the UI for now.
If we really want to remove icons, we should make it in the application sources. There are places where icons make a lot of sense (Add/Remove icons for example) and places where icons should also be dropped from select boxes etc. for consistency.
Is there at least a Wiki page where the rationale behind this controversial decision is presented?
> I make this bug blocker because GNOME 2.28.0 can't be released without either > reverting to old behaviour (showing icon by default) or at least make it > configurable. "I don't like it" is not a blocker criterium. > I also agree that changing the look and removing the interface preference tab > at the same time is a bad idea. Nice strawman, but the interface tab has not been removed, as far as I can see. We did remove it in Fedora, but that patch has not been merged upstream.
(In reply to comment #5) > "I don't like it" is not a blocker criterium. This bug is not about that, but about making it configurable in UI. That issue is blocker. (In reply to comment #2) > I also agree that changing the look and removing the interface preference tab > at the same time is a bad idea. That tab is not going to be removed. There is bug #592756 for that.
(In reply to comment #6) > (In reply to comment #5) > > "I don't like it" is not a blocker criterium. Criterion. :) > This bug is not about that, but about making it configurable in UI. That issue > is blocker. Icons being absent from text-labelled buttons isn't blocker-level severe, especially since it was an intentional change. Gnome 2.28 would still be functional on a day-to-day basis without this bug being fixed. (Arguably less or more functional, but still functional.) Adding a UI preference may seem like the easy option but it's actually costly in the long run. First of all it doubles the number of supported codepaths that need testing. If UI designers aren't strict about which options warrant preferences in the UI, the preferences dialogue quickly becomes unwieldy. Mozilla (SeaMonkey) and KDE both went down this route and now have positively labyrinthine prefs, which a large majority of of users find very confusing. So this is why the devs might be reticent to having a UI pref. The correct approach is to make a design decision, and allow the relatively-few users who care enough to use gconf-editor.
Greg: That's why I advocate going through dialogs one by one, each time making sure what remains is both elegant and usable rather than doing this globally. I do understand the reasons behind this change, I just don't like the pace.
Patryk, as a _design decision_, as Greg already said, this is just the easiest approach. How long would you think it would take to "go[ing] through dialogs one by one"? Even then there would be a good chance of 3rd party apps not following the guidelines etc. The current design is very easy to implement (no work required by app developers) and has a very high consistency. Sure there are some places that need(ed) to be fixed (mostly for menus) but that's less work by far. That said, I have been VERY against this default change but after forcing myself to use it for a while I totally love it.
Michael: I am using it since day one it was proposed but I still consider the "open"/"save as" dialog's add/remove buttons weird at least. Ditto for dialogs with >2 buttons (mostly "save changes?").
I find it particulary annoying for Close/Cancel/Save dialogs when you close unsaved work. Without icons on buttons it takes much more time to find the right one. I'm sure lots of user will lose their work because of that...
Maybe in the GUI, the options to have icons in the menu and in the button could be merged into a "Show icons in menus and buttons" check-box. Most users will want to activate icons for both of for none. So it provides a good trade-off between not adding more preferences and still allowing to reactivate the icons in the buttons without gconf-editor hunting skills. In case the two options would not be synchronized (because they were tweaked through gconf), the check-box would display a "half check" state, working similarly to the execution rights check-box in the file properties of nautilus.
That's a good idea.
Are there any option to turn on icons on buttons in GNOME 2.30 ?
(In reply to comment #14) > Are there any option to turn on icons on buttons in GNOME 2.30 ? See comment 0... For GNOME 3.x, this option won't be available. If you want to have it available in GNOME Plumbing, talk to vuntz about kickstarting the project.