Feature requests and bugs. (a lot of)

[Rob Park]

Alas! Jasper Huijsmans spake thus:
> perhaps it's me, perhaps this time I'm the one with a bad mood like
> Olivier before, but somehow these emails leave me feeling slightly
> annoyed. I'm quite sure it's my problem ...

Maybe I'm just being being annoying.

I am, honestly, only trying to help.

> > Yes! I want to be able to delete files with XFFM, not just copy and
> > rename them ;)
> > 
> > What's the point of the trashcan feature if there's no way to put
> > files into it? (at least, none that I can see).
> 
> So, you think this is intended behaviour then? Or might it be the case
> this this has simply not been implemented yet?

Well, I don't know. All I know is that when I first loaded up xffm, I
clicked around and couldn't find any way to delete stuff with it. It's a
feature it *should* have, IMO.

Keep in mind that if XFCE4 has bugzilla set up for it somewhere, I
haven't been able to find it. If anything I mention is already a known
issue, I'm sorry...

> > > - Lock-screen should popup if there is no xscreensaver or xlock.
> > 
> > Yeah, that's a good idea. Not everybody has xscreensaver installed ;)
> 
> Of course they have. Everybody has xscreensaver installed and/or xlock.

I didn't. I was sort of wondering why the lock button did nothing, until
I went and looked at the output on the console that X was running on...
then I installed it.

When a GUI encounters some kind of problem, graphical feedback that
tells the user what's wrong is generally a good thing... ;)

> > I'd like the tooltip to tell me how many new messages there are. That
> > would be nice ;)
> 
> Well, I'm not going to do it, but why don't you try.

Because at the moment, I can only code in perl and java. I don't know
any C/C++, at all.

I could write a perl script for counting the mail fairly easily, but how
I'd get that information into the tooltip is completely beyond me.

Don't get me wrong. I'd *love* to submit a stack of patches for you
guys. But I can't. So I'm just giving you suggestions on how you can
improve it on your own. Think of it as "your users want _____!"

> > The launcher sub-menus (whatever you call the things that pop up when
> > you click on the triangles on the panel) should be more "transient".
> > This means that if you click to open them, clicking elsewhere should
> > close them. As it stands now, I sometimes click on the triangle to
> > open them, then realize that I don't want to launch anything from this
> > menu: so I click on the desktop to close the menu, but that just opens
> > another menu for me.
> 
> I have thought about making them regular gtk menus. I think I agree with
> you here.

Nice ;)

> > I'd also like to see some options for configuring which menu pops up
> > on which mouse button, when clicking on the desktop. I've never seen
> > any user interface in the world where left-clicking on the desktop
> > pops up a menu, and it's very disorienting for me. I'd like to see the
> > left-button menu moved to the middle-button, but even better, make it
> > user-configurable.
> 
> xfce 3 has it ;-) probably CDE too. Anyway, since we have nothing else
> on the desktop I think it's perfectly all-right to use the left button.
> The right button can then be window list. Middle button clicks are
> really awkward IMO.

Then at least let me disable the leftbutton menu. I know how to empty it
out, but then I get a little weird looking square appear when I click...

Maybe you need to put in a "if (menu != empty) popupmenu();"
somewhere... :)

> > Oh, and one final thing. On the configuration menu that lets me
> > configure the order of the titlebar buttons, I am presented with a
> > grid of radio-buttons. This is a very horrible user-interface design,
> > and very, horribly confusing... I'm sorry to say it, but it's true!
> > What you should do is have something like this:
> 
> Well, this is the part that annoyed me. 'Horrible interface', 'what you
> should do'? How about, 'I dont like this interface' and 'I would prefer
> something more like this'? Much friendlier, and much more likely to
> get a good response as well. Again, it's probably just me.

I guess I was too harsh. But, a grid of radio buttons? *very* awkward,
IMO.

Every time I try to rearrange something, it doesn't behave the way that
I expect. If I want to move one button from the right side to the left
side, but keep everything else in the same (relative) position, then I
have to do some major clicking to get the order right. Not to mention
that the titlebar on that window doesn't even have all those buttons
*anyway*, meaning I have to pop open some other window just to see if
I've actually achieved what I wanted.

The picture that I linked to presents, IMO, a much more logical way of
achieving what the grid of radio buttons is trying to do. It may be less
screen efficient, but it's more users-head-not-imploding efficient ;)

> > Don't flame me for posting windows screenshots, but that's just an
> > example of a good interface for this particular purpose. "Hidden"
> > things go in the list on the left, visible on the right. Then you can
> > use the"Move up" and "move down" buttons to control the actual order
> > of the buttons themselves.
> 
> Well, I don't like that interface at all. Takes much more space to
> present the same info. I'm not saying the current one is perfect, but I
> prefer it over this example.

Well, I don't. Sorry.

Maybe we could do something like xscreensaver-demo does, when it's put
into "random screensaver" mode. Have a list of things with checkboxes;
if it's checked, then it's visible/enabled, and you could just give it
up/down buttons for changing the order (if my idea is unclear, I could
fake a screenshot of it with GIMP or something).

> > Just remember, I love XFCE4, and I'm only trying to make it better
> > with constructive criticism! Thanks for listening.
> 
> Well, sorry I got annoyed and thanks for the input anyway.

Ok, cool. You're welcome, I'm sorry too ;)

-- 
Rob Park
http://www.ualberta.ca/~rbpark
--
Never, ever lie to someone you love unless you're absolutely sure they'll
never find out the truth.