Re: [Usability] The ``Replace File'' dialog should display the two file sizes, times, etc.

[Jason Hoover <jasonhoover verizon net>]

On Thu, 2005-07-28 at 01:28 -0700, Corey Burger wrote:
> Joachim Noreiko and I have been discussing a good UI for the subjects
> use case at this bug:
> http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=47893
> 
> Luis Villa mentioned that it might be a good idea to bring this bug
> here, so I am. (Meant to do it for a while, kicked in the pants by
> http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=52484)
> 
> There are basically two ideas at odds here:
> 
> Mine: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/attachment.cgi?id=46071&action=view
> Joachims: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/attachment.cgi?id=48083&action=view
> 
> Thoughts?

This was brought up a little while ago too, but it was more about
buttons, and the lack thereof.

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2005-June/msg00007.html

Joachims design is interesting, because on one hand it explains a bit
more what's going on, but on the other, is sparse on detail (though
adding the keywords smaller, larger and possibly nearly identical would
be useful too, since it's possible to come across empty files that want
to replace non empty ones). But those expanders scare me, especially
when I'm moving > 10 files!

Yours is interesting because it's easier to gloss over without having to
read too far into it. The columns could be a bit more orderly, and
people will wonder what the heck "~" is (take my word for it, most of
the users I come across don't even know what it's called, much less that
it means "your home directory). Also, what happens when it's an
obscenely long pathname? Is it truncated or wrapped?

The lack of a "Stop the presses" cancel and "Damn the torpedoes"
replace/skip all buttons is a bit disappointing too.

In your version, the dialogue-like box has a title, which is different
than the error message, which is strange in both cases since one is
redundant, and one is unhelpful. The alert icon is a bit distracting,
but that might just be a symptom of where it is.

The other strange thing is that it's laid out like a table, but the
descriptive fields are in the middle, not where the eye starts out. This
would make i18n problems anyway, as you're sort of assuming they read
left to right because of the direction of the arrow.

Maybe something like:

	[<action>: filename conflict]

[!1!!]		There is already a file named:		
[!one]		[*] <foo>

		From:		->	To:
Directory:	<src>			<dst>
Modified:	<srcdate>		<dstdate>
Size:		<srcsize>		<dstsize>
Owner:		<foo>			<bar>
Group:		<baz>			<bat>
Type:		<blagh>			<wompl>

[Skip] [Replace] [Replace all] [skip all] [Forget it]

* = A tiny type icon.

It'd allow the eye to scan through the list on the left and read right,
rather than tracing down the middle, and backtracking left and right.
Like I said, obvious i18n problem, but R>L languages could probably
reverse this if appropriate or desired.

I list the group and owner for world-readable/writable stuff and type
for non-extension files.

Perhaps you could even highlight the differences (for example, make
"Size" and "Modified" bold if they're different to make it noticeable
faster). You could use an expander to hide the less interesting
information (type, group, owners, etc), but that might be a distraction.

I like yours better, but for now I find it a little lacklustre and
disorganized. Clean it up and re-suggest.

Glad to see there's progress being made since Q2-2001. ;)

There you have it, my napalm-coated 0.02. Flame on!

-Jason Hoover

PS: The usability homepage is broken.