On Thu, 14 Jul 2005, Jason Hoover wrote: > Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 21:14:36 -0400 > From: Jason Hoover <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [Usability] "About" menu items galore... > > > > Yeah that too. It almost goes without saying. > > > > I love being thanked for my efforts and some projects have an extensive > > list of people they thank, anyone who has ever provide a line of code > > or filed a bug report in one or two rare cases. Others only mention > > the maintainers (a missed opportunity in my humble opinion). > > How about the bug testers and usability folks too? ;-)
Freeciv has an extensive list for every release which thanks a vast array of contributors of all kinds, I don't I have ever seen any other project which goes to such lengths to thank all stakeholders for getting involved. If I ever get around to creating an application worth inflicting^H^H^H^H^H^H releasing to the public I would use the Authors list to indicate only those who have a Copyright stake in the software and have a really long list of thanks that would be only slightly shorter than your average changelog. I would expect most users to ignore the Credits section of the About dialog though. I would want to make sure to provide the application name, what it does (eg Number Puzzle) and the version information and contact information (list address because it is reasonably permanent) and website address (preferably Gnome.org so it can be centrally maintained and redirected to the most up to date source because old binaries with obselete links survive long after web pages have moved). > [Note: The following crit^H^H^H^H rant is from the Joe Point-'n'-grunt > perspective, it is not meant to be a troll or a flame. It is intended as > tounge-in-cheek criticism. Thank you.] > I agree, myself, but it almost seems a bit excessive to have one for > every single applet. About-Panels, About-Show-Desktop-button, > About-Window-switcher, About-task-panel, About-notification-area, > About-clock. About clock? Does the clock really need it's own 32bpp SVG > image and an about dialogue? It is kind cool for contributors to be able to show orindary users "I did that" and a well written About Dialog provides genuinely usefuly information even if you have nuked your documentation. Even if we wanted to remove all the about dialogs from the applets it could be politically difficult to do and and I must make it absolutely clear I think it is more important to fix the about dialogs to actually include helpful information and relevant coherent descriptions that actually tell you what the program is about. We could set a Gnome standard and try to insist anything included in Gnome would have to follow the applet rules but we have never worked that way before and I think it would be a really terrible idea to try and start that more authoritarian road to managing Gnome. (This is all just wild speculation so please do not respond with your own questions and if and buts and conspiracy theories on this. I'm pretty sure this is something that will not happen but it nonetheless interesting to talk about if we can keep the discussion sane and civilised.) > Why does the about box say "Copyright FSF" but the manual say "Sun > Microsystems?" (A good example of under-maintained documentation) Documentation is owned by someone else. This could stand to be made clearer in some cases and a section on the program copyright could be included in the doucmentations as well. (I wonder how much disk space could be saved by having a standard folder containing all the licensese instead of repeating them in every About Dialog and in every program manual and in some cases ever file of source code.) > It brings up another issue, there seems to be no standard when it comes > to the order of that menu. Some have it at the top, some at the bottom, Panel menu ordering is about putting the most important items in the prime locations. (On any menu the top and bottom position are usually easiest places to target.) The About menu item is not very important and will get bumped around in favour of more important items. When coming up with a recommend layout (hint) and filing a bug report (hint, hint) you should keep this in mind and be careful developers understand when they can break your guidelines on the suggested order for context menuitems in applets. > Does the HIG have any kind of recommendations for consistency of panel > applets? It appears to be an area that's a bit on the lame side outside > of a few key points. Would Gnome panels benefit from more specific > recommendations? Calum overlord of all usability will know! (Seems like Calum is running a one man show at the moment but perhaps there are other paid professionals still working away more quietly on Gnome usability.) > So, let's see, so far I've got inconsistent; > > 1) Tool tips. > 2) Documentation locations. > 3) Documentation. > 4) Placement of menu items. > 5) Options. > 6) Appearance. > > Oy, what a mess. Though, this is just one unhelpful man's opinion. Take > it with a grain or two of salt. Patches welcome ;) Sincerely Alan Horkan http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/ _______________________________________________ Usability mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability
