GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 627781
Show helpful tooltips for applications
Last modified: 2011-09-16 03:24:56 UTC
Version: git pull on 2010-08-24 I think it would be very helpful to include tooltips in the applications dialog. A tooltip could show e.g. the Comment field of the application's .desktop file when the user hovers over the application's icon. This way the function of an unknown application could me more easily available to a new user.
I agree with Jendrik: For a new User (think complete newbie to free software) you need two things: First: a speaking name for the application Second: a a good descriptions of the application in the tooltip. For example: Oncle Tom boots his computer (WinXP-convert) to write a letter. But how can he figure out (easily) which application to use? Search for "Text" (if he understands that he can search for application in the search field) shows him several application. Besides others "Text editor - Gedit" and "Word processor OpenOffice". There is a positive probability that he starts writing his letter with the Text editor, since that is what he wants "Edit some text"? Good tooltips would clarify the situation - especially since speaking names for applications are rare/hard to find.
tooltips for Application menu is a must Fedora Test Day showed the big problem with very short description of menu elements most of them have labels like "Simple s..." or "Software ..."(there are two buttons which have label "Software..." so far) so the tooltips is a good way to make new user know what these icons are stand for
The plan is to expand the name on hover, like so: http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-shell-design/plain/mockups/static/overview-application-picker.png?id=8787fec33702fcd8e134751886c50a4819b6503d I'm not sure if we already have a bug open for this.
"expand on hover" is problematic when used with a touch-screen device, since the expanded text is often shown at a place where your hand/finger is. (This could be worked around by displaying the text above the icon.) Tooltips can (at least theoretically) be configured to be always shown left/right of the icon to adjust to left-hand/right-handed users.
Seems to me that the tooltips here should be displayed on the side of the launcher bar, complete with an application description as a subtext. And probably in a bigger default font size than now. The left/right issue should solve itself I guess. The reasonable thing to do is - AFAICT, IANAL (i-am-not-a-leftie! hehe) - to just flip the launcher bar over to the right side for a left-handed user? I'm sure the developers have plans for this already. Flip the whole interface, basically.
so, the "expand name on hover" is now in gnome-shell 3.0.x. We would need to reuse this hovering for displaying the "comment" part of .desktop for applications in the application list.
The name is currently shown and that is all we really want to do. Displaying information about the application is not really appropriate for the "tooltip"/label. The goal is to only have applications that have self evident icons and names installed by default. And then apps that you learn about and know can be installed explicitly. We are still a ways away from that of course but that's the basic idea.
*** Bug 659209 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***