Jaap Keuter wrote:
Hi list,
With all the items added to the preference dialog "User Interface" panel
it has become rather larger. The dialog has the tendency to drop off the
lower part of the screen, requiring moving the window before the buttons
are accessable.
FULL ACK
The "User Interface" page is filled by people without thinking about
usability at all: "I got my preference setting that I need into it".
This leads to a lot of settings that no one (exactly a very few people)
will ever use. And confuses a lot of other users (including me, and I'm
working with Ethereal for quite a while :-)
I propose to move some items off the "User Interface" panel. The items
selected are related to 'how the interface looks', meaning layout, so they
can move to the "Layout" panel. The relevant settings are:
-Vertical scrollbar placement
-Alternating row colors in lists and trees
-Toolbar style
-Filter toolbar placement
-Custom window title
I've attached a screenshot of how it would look.
Q: Is this a good idea, or should I scrap it?
I saw this problem too and was thinking about it some time ago, but
couldn't find a good solution.
Some questions remain:
- which items can be dropped completely (e.g. "Vertical scrollbar
placement" should be simply removed from the GUI IMHO). If there's
someone really needing it, he might edit the preferences file.
- "Alternating row colors in lists and trees" and "Custom window title"
are arguably not Layout settings so they shouldn't appear in the Layout page
- adding more to the Layout page will complicate the usage of the
"Defaults" button (you've used "Default panes" which is better than
nothing but still a bit unintuitive IMO)
So in the end, I'm against simply adding these things to the Layout page.
What I would love to see is some cleanup of the page as a first step,
e.g. removing the settings not really needed, adding tooltips to all
settings, improving the labels e.g.: "Wrap to end/beginning of a file
during find", grouping settings on topic (e.g. "Ask for unsaved" might
better be placed directly below the other "Save" settings, ...)
This might make it more visible how the page should be redesigned, and
yes, a redesign is really needed ...
As the next step, we might need a whole new page (not very much work) or
rename the current Layout page to something different (e.g. Appearance)
but that's too early for me now ...
Regards, ULFL
