About Dialogs [was Re: [Usability] Panel popup proposal]

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Thu, 10 Jun 2004, Marek Peteraj wrote:

> > > I have a suggestion about panels popup menu... perhaps someone has
> > > already posted something similar however I don't know :-)
> >
> > We have indeed had long discussions about this before... most of the key
> > points are captured in this (now closed) bug report:
> > http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=82642
>
> Haven't read it thoroughly, have seen some talks about the hide buttons.
> Too non-obvious i suppose.
>
> I think you should take a look at each function of the parent context
> menu i.e. the panel menu:
>
> 1. about panels, about gnome - who cares we want usability ;)

As a user I have always found About dialogs to be a waste of space because
they tell you so little about the application.

If done correctly the About Dialog should provide the Application name
description, the application version and date (and possibly indications if
any special build options have been used).

When I was an absolute beginner I went to the About dialog exepecting to
be able to find a description or something that would inform me that that
$APPLICATION was a Spreadsheet, Presentation Graphics, Word Processor etc
and never found it.  With all the "clever" gnames I enKountered learning
to use Linux it was even worse and I wished even more that the about
dialog really told me something about the application.

However about dialogs almost always do provide useful version information
in a convenient place (even if far too many programs try and do something
clever and make it impossible to copy and paste that information, or get
at a full list of the authors) which is essential for people doing bug
reporting.

"About Gnome" unlike "About KDE" does not appear very often, and the Panel
is one of the few places it appears.
So although "About Panels" and "About Gnome" do not add much they are
still necessary and I think you would need good reasons to get rid of
them.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan
http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/