From: Jesper Skov (jskov@zoftcorp.dk)
Date: Mon Apr 29 2002 - 01:27:08 EDT
On Mon, 2002-04-29 at 00:45, Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote:
> On Sun, 2002-04-28 at 18:58, Alan Horkan wrote:
> > > This is pretty cool; for now I've hardcoded the increment as being 10%.
> > > Maybe that should be a pref.
> > Did you read Havoc Penningtons recent usability essay, "too many
> > preferences".
> > http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/04/21/051228&mode=nested
>
> Havoc's argument has many flaws, most of which are based on the
> assumption that all users are dumb. When he says must, he means 99%
> which is, in practice, all.
[snip]
> Even though you're an 3133t hax0r, you're naturally lazy.
> If you can have all your options in the same dialog, set or not set,
> you'll find faster what you need than if you have to read (INSERT LOADS
> OF DOCS) just to find that teensy option (if it even exists at all).
I don't consider myself dumb, but I do find that too many options is
more of a problem than it is a help.
Have you ever tried looking for an option in xchat?
The many options in many different windows makes it almost impossible to
find a particular option.
No, I'd prefer a text file any day, coz I can *search* in it.
However, there's no law against new ways of doing things. So I'd
suggest, in addition to the existing pref tabs, we get one that's called
"raw options", "advanced", or something like that, containing *all*
options.
It should *not* include buttons, check boxes, fields and whatnot laid
out in the normal (and very space consuming way). It should contain a
list with two columns:
option name setting
the setting column should be able to hold check boxes, fields and
whatever necessary. It should also allow searching.
The option name column should have tooltips describing the action of the
individual option.
And the list should be searchable, and sortable on both option name and
setting.
This has several advantages that I can see:
o options collected in one place
o options available in AbiWord, not just the config file
o doesn't take up gazillions of preference tabs on acount
of needing fancy&bloaty layout.
o doesn't need development time to make said layout
o allows quick overview of what options are enabled/disabled
o allows searching for options
The only disadvantage I can think of is that there's probably no
existing widget that does all this for us. So it has to be programmed.
But then, it only has to be programmed once.
Jesper
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