From: Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Apr 29 2002 - 01:35:48 EDT
--- Jesper Skov <jskov@zoftcorp.dk> wrote: > 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.
(For each platform).
I have to say that I *love* lots of preferences and
I'm usually strongly in favour of
a) "Just Work",
b) Provide a few obvious settings in an easy-to-find
place
c) Provide lots of other settings somewhere
that only geeks, wizards, gurus, and those told how to
fix a problem by a geek, wizard, or guru need know
about.
I liked the way Pine did this, the JavaScript prefs
files for Mozilla, and the MSIE "Internet Options/
Advanced". I really don't mind how we go about it as
long as we don't lose flexibility.
Andrew Dunbar.
> Jesper
>
=====
http://linguaphile.sourceforge.net http://www.abisource.com
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