[Thunar-dev] Location Bar ala Firefox
Brian
brian-schott at cox.net
Sat Mar 19 02:39:31 CET 2005
Benedikt Meurer wrote:
> In the new mockup, it'll popup a separate 'Open Location' dialog.
>
> The Firefox-like location bar on the bottom is a cool thing, but aside
> from the wow-effect, it adds very little usabilty currently (and
> introduces a11y problems).
I'd say that's because currently the auto-complete isn't implemented.
Without that, it is a useless wow-effect.
>
> Btw. I don't consider 'window clutter' a valid argument against the
> separate dialog.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that one...
> The dialog will open centered on the main window; and if your window
> manager's focus management is not totally b0rked (like 'focus exactly
> under pointer' in kwin), you'll have no problems using the dialog - in
> fact, you already do so with GtkFileChooser, so don't tell me it's
> impossible. :-)
>
But that doesn't mean I like it :-)
> I think both solutions have their specific advantages and
> disadvantages. Popping up a dialog makes it more obvious to users, as
> that's the way he's used to. The Firefox-like way - if done right ;-)
> - is nice, since the location bar is associated with the main view (or
> should be associated with the main view).
>
> The issues with the firefox-like way (talking about
> http://www.xfce.org/~benny/tmp/20050319-thunar_go3.png):
>
> * How to associated this visually with the main view?
> * What about different themes?
> * What about the close button?
> * What about spacing (the current frame border width makes it look
> very busy)?
> * What about a11y? E.g. people with motoric disabilities may run into
> trouble with the focus-out handling.
>
> Don't get me wrong, I think it's a cool feature, but the cool-factor
> is less important than the usability-factor. So atleast the issues
> mentioned about needs to be addressed first.
>
> Ideas? Suggestions? :o)
>
Usability for one group of people means a quick and unobtrusive keyboard
search, usability to others means a dialog. I'm fine having the dialog
be the default, in fact that's a good idea for the reasons you stated
above. Is there a way we could keep the "firefox bar" as an option as well?
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