Re: Printer driver UI [proposal]

[Michael Goffioul <goffioul imec be>]

>    A number of people in the printing community have identified the
>    need to improve the user experience in this particular area that
>    you are describing. The main issue I see with your proposal is that
>    you are trying to describe how the UI is going to be layed out by
>    the GUI application, I don't think we want to do that but rather
>    provide the information to the GUI level so that it can make smart
>    decisions as how best to layout the interface.

The ideal case from a user's point of view is to have a similar GUI
whatever the app you're using: gnumeric, kword, galeon, konqueror...
The style will be slightly different, but the widget layout should
stay quite similar such that the user doesn't have to find its way in
each application. That's why I proposed to standardize the layout
description in a common format we agree on.

Of course you can think about semi-automatic solutions, like the
one group - one tab possibility (XPP), or one group - one popup
dialog (like Till proposed). But I don't find this smarter than
a simple tree view. What if you want to put some icons to make
things more beautiful and more easily recognizable, or to have
a kind of image preview to illustrate the CMY levels variations,
or to include some spacers in the layout, or to use vertical
and horizontal lines to separate logical groups of options. If
you take 3rd screenshot, you'll see that I splitted the sliders
in 2 groups, logically grouping CMY levels together. In a automatic
solution, you would have 2 tabs or worse, 2 dialogs. The only solution
is to put all 8 sliders together without any spacing. Not better,
and confusing for a simple user.

As you see, I'm talking about tiny things that an expert Linux
user probably finds completely useless, but IMO can contribute
to the user-friendlyness of Linux for the desktop. And maybe if
we can agree on a solution, printer manufacturers will start to
provide their own UI description.

Bye.
Michael.

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Michael Goffioul		IMEC-DESICS-MIRA
e-mail: goffioul imec be	(Mixed-Signal and RF Applications)
Tel:    +32/16/28-8510		Kapeldreef, 75
Fax:    +32/16/28-1515		3001 HEVERLEE, BELGIUM
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