Re: user interface niggles

[Peter Bloomfield <PeterBloomfield bellsouth net>]

On 04/10/2003, David Scotson wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I very recently began using your mail client and, while overall very 
> happy with its simplicity and ease-of-use, my status as a new user 
> means I am well placed to spot UI niggles that may cause unnecessary 
> confusion for your end-users.

...and thank you for pointing them out!

> I hope you can use this information to further improve Balsa.

We'll try.

[ snip ]

> When trying to paste into the To, Subject or Cc fields the text to be 
> pasted appears in the main message body area instead. Your FAQ 
> mentions a similar problem where the text appears after you press 
> return but this appears to be a separate issue.

Are you using the Edit menu items (or the corresponding shortcuts? Ctrl
+C, Ctrl+V, etc?  Currently, all the items on that menu refer to the 
text area of the compose window, which can be confusing.  Another user 
pointed that out recently.  I guess we could either:
- make it clearer that the menu refers to the text by greying out the 
items when the keyboard focus is elsewhere; or
- make the actions of the menu items depend on which area has the focus;
We recently changed the Edit menu for the main window to make `Select 
All' act on either the message index or the message content, depending 
on focus, so it should be possible to do something similar for the 
compose window.  However, there may be UI issues: should the action of 
a menu item be focus-dependent, or should it be unconditional?

> There is a 'grippy' on the separator between the To, Subject etc. 
> fields and the main body of the email that appears to have no real 
> function.

That one really surprises me!  On RH8, there's just a 1- or 2-pixel 
line with no decoration of any sort; the cursor changes from the text 
form to an arrow pointer, but never to the double-ended arrow.  The Gtk 
widgets must have been reimplemented.

> When new mail arrives the window listing emails updates in a strange 
> manner. If the window was showing the most recent 10 emails before 
> the new mail arrived I would expect it to show the most recent 10 
> emails taking into account the new arrivals rather than continue to 
> display the exact same emails.

I don't know how others work, but I'm often reading, filing, replying 
to, etc., the messages in a thread, and I wouldn't want the index to 
scroll away from it when new mail arrives.  I use the notification 
popup, so I know it arrived, and I can always use the button (or Ctrl
+N) to get to the new message(s).  Or am I missing the point?

> When cancelling an email, the confirmation dialog is confusing. 
> According to the Gnome HIG [Don't Save] [Cancel] [Save] would be 
> better than the current [No] [Yes] [Cancel] with the default being 
> [Save] as it is non-destructive, rather than the current [No]. There 
> are a few other issues with this dialog, e.g. it is a question, 
> rather than a standard confirmation alert, and it's message reads 
> poorly if the email does not have a destination address.

Balsa predates the HIG, and we're slowly fixing the most blatant 
conflicts with it.  Can you suggest wording for a more standard version?

> I would like in time to be able to offer patches, even if only for 
> trivial interface issues, but that will have to wait till I am more 
> at home with Linux and have investigated Gnome development.
> 
> In the meantime, do you find such 'superficial' bug reports useful, 
> or are you fully aware of these issues and merely waiting for someone 
> to find the time to make the necessary changes?

As Carlos noted, a fresh set of eyes is immensely valuable!  After a 
while, you get used to even the most broken tool (which Balsa isn't, I 
hasten to add!), and sometimes even view its brokennesses as features 
;-)

Peter