HIGification

Bug #133510 reported by Sebastian Heinlein
2
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Bootloader Manager
Fix Committed
Medium
Tomé Vardasca

Bug Description

Hello,

I'ven seen the screenshots on planet.ubuntu, but failed to get the application running on my system. So here is a more theoretical review judging by the screenshots and the glade file only. I have created a branch with the changes in Launchpad. The numbers in the brackets point to widgets in the screenshots.

The user interface does not follow the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines in many ways:

 * it has elements from an application (menu) and a dialog (action button bar) [1,2] I would suggest to use a capplet style without the menu. Are there any use cases for loading and saving to different locations? the view menu contains entries that do not affect the appearance of the bootloader-manager (the last two ones). The "show menu on start up" entry could be moved to the bottom of the dialog.

 * the left sided tabs are very uncommon in GNOME and you have got a lot of free space [3]. it should be reverted to top located or a list view. Additionally you have got lot free space on the right side too. So I would suggest to move the add,remove, preferences button also to the right and some extra space between the two button groups [4]

 * The remove action does not require any further input, so it does not need the three dots. [8]

 * the preferences button should be renamed to edit. since you edit an entry.

 * do not use icons for their own sake [3]. they are very tiny and hard to recognize. why an exclamation mark for security? so they only seem to consume space.

 * there is not any indication what will happen after the time out [6]. so I would suggest to a checkbox "automatically choose default entry after X seconds" (X starting at 1)

* Generally you should make use of spaces to separate widgets: 6, 12 and 18 points are mainly used in GNOME depending on the relationship of the widgets

* You should add a scrolled window (vertically only) to the entry list [7] and use end ellipses for the entry names

* you should avoid having many different alignments in your user interface. the widgets should use the full width of the dialog

* If you use the space more efficiently you could merge the colors and preview tab (sorry, I haven't seen the preview yet), but I think it would be enough to render two menu entries and show only a small piece of the background)

* the labels of frames should be bold, furthermore you should use the following alignments: 6 points above and 12 points to the left for the content of the frame

* in GNOME the term selected is used instead of highlighted

* Since "normal colors" are quite generic, you should rename the checkbutton to "Use custom colors" [11]. The explanation could be moved to a tooltip. the widgets for the selected entry should be indented, since the checkbutton affects them

* The open button could be replaced by a file chooser button, this way the user would also see the name of the chosen image

* moving the openbutton next to the checkbutton also saves some space and the relationship of these two widgets is visible

* Do not use hardcoded colors (red in the password error dialog). you have to think of visually impaired people and different themes. if the passwords do not match the ok button should be disabled.

* Finally the spacings and indentations should be corrects on the security tab too.

I haven't yet reviewd the preferences/edit dialog.

I hope that could be of help for you. Feel free to contact me. Keep on your good work!

Cheers,

Sebastian

Revision history for this message
Sebastian Heinlein (glatzor) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Sebastian Heinlein (glatzor) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Sebastian Heinlein (glatzor) wrote :

I added my branch to the bootloader-manager project on Lanuchpad, but since the mirror is not yet up here the glade file

Revision history for this message
Tomé Vardasca (cacau) wrote :

Thanks for great help yo give me.
There are some options that can only be available with the menu like the load last configuration.
Cheers,
Tomé Vardasca

Revision history for this message
Sebastian Heinlein (glatzor) wrote :

The question is if you need such an option in the capplet mode? To undo changes you can just hit the cancel button.

The open and save as functions seem also to be more "developer options". Exchanging the whole file between computers is perhaps not working in most cases.

Tomé Vardasca (cacau)
Changed in ubuntu-bootloader-manager:
assignee: nobody → cacau
importance: Undecided → Low
status: New → Fix Released
Tomé Vardasca (cacau)
Changed in ubuntu-bootloader-manager:
importance: Low → Medium
status: Fix Released → Fix Committed
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