[bt-devel] New Windows Development Version

[Jonathan Morgan]

On Sun, May 30, 2010 at 8:33 PM, Eeli Kaikkonen <
eekaikko at mail.student.oulu.fi> wrote:

> On Sat, 29 May 2010, Gary Holmlund wrote:
> > >
> > > 3. When I drag a reference below other references inside a folder, it
> > > still puts the reference outside that folder.  I have to actually
> > > hover over the folder to get them in the folder.
> > When I drag a reference down from the last bookmark in a folder, I see
> > the arrow indented to the level of the last bookmark. If I release then,
> > the bookmark will go into the folder. If I move slightly further down
> > the arrow moves left indicating that the bookmark will be put outside
> > that folder. I think it is working correctly.
>
> I designed it that way. The arrow should always show where the bookmark
> is going. I tried to find an intuitive way, testing some file managers
> to see how they do it. The logic is this: if you hover UNDER an item,
> the new one is placed under that item, at the same level. If you hover
> over an item, the new one is placed inside a folder or under a bookmark.
> If it's changed, we have to make sure that it's possible to put a new
> bookmark in any place. If dropping under a folder puts it inside the
> folder, how can a bookmark be added AFTER the last folder?


I'm sorry, but here you are reasoning as a software developer.  While it is
a desirable goal to support everything, your average user* only thinks about
what they were trying to do, not whether what they were trying to do makes
sense in the big UI picture.

Anyway, I'm not dropping under a folder, I'm dropping under the last
bookmark within a folder.  This is clearly (to me) indicated by the fact
that I have the mouse under about the middle of that indented item.  (I do
understand that my intentions are a lot clearer to me than they are to the
computer).

I didn't find that the arrow helped me either.  I could see that it was
trying to tell me something about where it was going to go, but even after
using it a few times I wasn't clear where that was (maybe because there
wasn't enough difference in indentation levels or something?)

* I'm not an average user.

> > 4. When I move a bookmark into a folder, rather than just moving there
> > > it pops up a menu.  I don't know about Linux, but for Windows this is
> > > completely unexpected behaviour (drag = move.  If you really want
> > > copy, that's Ctrl-drag).
> > I have seen one other cross platform program that did this. Most do the
> > Ctrl-drag for copy. It may be unexpected, but it is obvious what it is
> > doing. If you did not know about Ctrl-drag, you would probably never
> > discover it. I would like opinions from others about this.
>
> Yes, this is a cross-platform issue. Many design decisions have been
> made based on KDE. Konqueror and Dolphin use the popup menu, and it's
> expected behaviour there. We could change it for Windows version, but I
> don't recommend it. I agree with Gary's comment.
>

For myself, I rarely want copy and frequently want move, so having to do
extra steps to do a move is annoying.  I suspect for many users it will be
more than just annoying, it will be totally unexpected and highly scary
(probably related: I'm fairly certain BibleCS has got bug reports because
something pulls up a menu unexpectedly - I think clicking on a link).

Jon
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.crosswire.org/pipermail/bt-devel/attachments/20100531/131a5ed0/attachment.html>