Re: [Usability] Compliance to GNOME UI Patterns of Cross-Platform Apps

[DmD Ljungmark <spider gnome org>]

On Tue, 2010-08-31 at 15:06 +0800, Allan Caeg wrote:
> 
> Mozilla is coming up with a new Add-ons Manager UI for Firefox. I was
> asked
> what Linux-specific stuff should be designed and how much should be
> specified, because the look and feel depends on the DE's settings. I
> said
> that all I can think of at that time is that it should follow the GTK+
> "skinning" of XUL like how other XUL elements do it, because the
> Add-ons
> Manager doesn't yet (in Firefox 4.0 Beta 4).
> 
> 

Hi, I'm wondering about the two-gear button, in the upper right next to
the Search interface.  It doesn't look like any other button around it
has rounded corners, icons not aligned to the borders of the button,
different horizontal height compared to the search field.

--

The main list "Name" and "Last Updated" should probably be a "real" list
(compare to a mail client/file manager) to indicate sorting, with the
arrow up/down for sorting rather than shading the background.



What significance does the left/right arrow in the upper-ish left part
have?   They _seem_ to control the tab you have active, but does it do
something else?   Why doesn't the ui use the same back/Forward buttons
of the main browser? 

the tab selections look very out of place, not to mention that the top
left tab isn't even aligning to the display part, but cause a jarring
gap between them.


The search field isn't visually aligned on the right hand, causing the
window to look out of proportion once again.

Left/Right alignment of the icon in the search field appears
inconsistent with other applications in the platform ( Gnome typically
has a "clear the search field" brush on the right)


"View recent updates" slowly fades in a new tab ( that may just be a
performance issue) on the right, which also appears "wrong"

The bevel around the main white area doesn't look like anything else on
the platform. Design choice?



Just some notes, thankyou!