Re: Goto dialog proposal

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005, Robert Staudinger wrote:

> Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2005 13:02:45 +0100
> From: Robert Staudinger <robsta@stereolyzer.net>
> To: abiword-dev@abisource.com
> Subject: Goto dialog proposal
>
> Hi,
>
> proposing this change to the Goto dialog so we can have the
> discussion /before/ this time. Not much more to say than this would give
> us a dialog that could easily be extended to a oowriter like document
> navigator thing (should not mean that i think we're in need for such a
> beast).

The GOTO dialog could certainly stand to be improved.

I'm not impressed by how the current dialog substantially changes layout
when you switch to 'Bookmarks'. It also seems a little odd that the "Go
to" dialog uses a button labelled Jump rather than "Go".

Ideally I'd like to see comparisons to GOTO dialogs in other applications
before you go ahead with any major changes. Gradual evolution will reduce
the chance of regressions. (I have a suspicion you have borrowed some
ideas from Microsoft Word, borrowing and learing is definately a good
thing but given how often they make mistakes needs to be done very
carefully.)

Screenshots of Abiword Go To dialog
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~horkana/abiword/abiword-goto-bookmark-001.png
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~horkana/abiword/abiword-goto-line-001.png

(I'd include OpenOffice.org Writer screenshots but it doesn't exactly have
a Go to dialog but rather a special navigator palette with way more
functionality and it also has a much more complex Find and Replace
dialog.)

Roberts proposed Go To dialog
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~horkana/abiword/abi-gtk-goto.png

> - The widgets are positioned vertically, that's IMO better for a
> non-modal dlg to
> fit aside the open document(s).
> - For "Page" we might want to add the pages to the tree up to about
> 10-15 pages.
> - Wording could certainly be improved, it's based on existing strings
> now.

My initial reaction to your mockup was not good, the two rows of buttons,
with Close on its own looks really bad. Looking at it a little longer I
realise I was put off it little bit unfairly by your choice of theme and
the rest of the dialog might work.

It not your fault but more a general criticism of GTK versus Microsoft
Windows but I really dislike that those list widgets are not always
sortable and that programmers are forced to add the functionality.
I always expect to be able to sort them and consider it a nice extra bit
of polish when a GTK developers makes the extra effort.

> What you do ppl from other platforms think?
> If theres any volunteers for writing the custom
> GtkCellRendererSpinButton please speak up, other than that i've got to
> dive in.

- Alan H.
Received on Thu Jan 20 19:37:51 2005