Re: Styles management dialog

On Mon, 2005-02-14 at 02:15 +0100, Robert Staudinger wrote:
> On Son, 2005-02-13 at 22:56 +0100, Reinout van Schouwen wrote:
> >On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 21:45:43 +0100, Robert Staudinger
> ><robsta@stereolyzer.net> wrote:
> >
> >> The mockups are not 100% HIG compliant, i know. Having the tabs on top
> >> would contradict the "top to bottom" methaphor (first select style, then
> >> edit).
> >
> >Oh, I was under the impression that the style selection happened in
> >the left column! I regarded the top section as some kind of preview
> >pane. :)
>
> It is both. I think MS Word does something similar in their style
> dropdown toolbar. The benefit i see is that styles can be selected by
> how they look and not only by their name (without clicking on them
> first).
>
>
> >> A possibility getting rid of the tabs would be to use a tree on the left
> >> side for selecting the property dialog. I'm however not completely
> >> convinced about that one ...
> >
> >A tree should be avoided if a list is possible.
>
> We could use a list but also show entries that would be tabs. "Toplevel"
> list items could be highlighted by putting an icon next to them, maybe
> additionally boldfaced text.
> The list would be pretty long, as some of the standalone dialogs have
> 2-3 pages now.
>
> >
> >> That will of course be handeled by gtk itself.
> >
> >Yes, but it's not GTK's fault when windows get larger than 640 or 800
> >pixels wide, thereby making them no longer fit on some users' screens.
> >
> >> True, but maybe not a problem in this case. We could make sure that the
> >> currently selected style always stays the same when changing the list
> >> option. So no user visible widget would change.
> >
> >Oh, I get it. The radio buttons affect the pane to the right of it,
> >not the one below it. Counter-intuitive, if you ask me. In that case
> >disregard my comment.
>
> I'm feeling somewhat tempted to drop the list all/used/user defined
> completely for the sake of simplification. OTOH this would very much
> limit functionality of a dialog which is mostly used by people who know
> what they are doing anyways.
>
> >
> >> Well, after you change a style it is of course applied in the document.
> >> If the document is very large this will take longer than recommended for
> >> auto apply.
> >
> >I take it you mean instant apply. In that case the HIG recommends a
> >separate Apply button to the left of Cancel and OK.
>

Hmm it would be could to always have instant apply here. Unless you're
redefining "Normal" the users should should see the effect very quickly.

There are other tricks I can think of to make the feedback fast even
under these circumstances. (like doing the blocks on screen before the
rest of the document.)

Lets do instant apply always and make it work.

Cheers

Martin

> Best,
> - Rob
>
Received on Mon Feb 14 02:33:28 2005