panel item remove confirmation

[Brian J. Tarricone]

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Erik Harrison wrote:

> Wow. This thread is long already. But since I was called on . . .
> 
> After having thought about it, my real answer is that the whole option
> of removing an item via the right click menu is the wrong idea. Which
> is probably a contentious point, so I'll justify it.

Sure, I'll buy that.

> Working from the question about whether or not there should be a
> confirmation dialog for plugin removal, I got this:
> 
> Arguments for the dialog:
> 1) Plugin preferences are per instance, and as such removing a plugin
> is more than just inconvenience, it can constitute real data loss.
> 
> 2) Removing plugins while right clicking is a real and distinct
> possibility, especially when the system tray and the tasklist make it
> common to right click on a plugin for specific functionality - a few
> pixels off, and there goes your taskbar.

Right, agree.

> Arguments against:
> 1) It's a mild inconviniece. Which is a real issue, as most software's
> major UI flaw is the death of the thousand cuts
> 2) Teaching users to click "Okay" to confirm lots of dialogs teaches
> users not to read dialogs, and thus accidentally removing your entire
> bleeding panel is a very real possibility.

Again, agree, but I feel like this is the lesser evil.  IMHO and all
that, anyway.

> So, looking at these points, and playing with the panel myself, it's
> pretty obvious that the culprit is the damn right click menu on the
> panel itself.
> 
> 1) It has two Remove items, whose action is predicted by where it is in the menu
> 2) Ditto for properties
> 3) "Manage Panel Items" is a bit of a bastard child. It's global to
> managing the panels state, but could be construed to deal with
> managing a given item's preferences as well. And since it's the most
> visually distinct item in the list (Three Capital Letters, longest,
> middle of the menu), your eye goes straight to it. This has resulted
> in this kind of behaviour

I'm mentally debating whether or not I think  it's worth getting rid of
two menu items (New Panel and Remove [panel]) at the expense of making
Manage Panel Items more complicated (which I think is a nice cool simple
UI).  Now, Manage Panel Items can also handle removal of items, but it's
not quite intuitive.  I know someone already didn't realised that the
panel items were draggable and had no idea how to rearrange them.  I'm
sure there are some people who still don't know that you can drag panel
items back to the dialog to remove them, and the reverse for adding them.

Although... why not take the Firefox toolbar editor model all the way?

1.  Change "Manage Panel Items" to "Customize..."
2.  Add text "You can add or remove items by dragging to or from the
panels" to the top of the panel item dialog (it already says something
similar to this).
3.  Ditch the list idea.  Make each item in the dialog an icon with just
its name under it.  The description can go in a tooltip.
4.  Each icon should be a screenshot of the actual plugin while it's in
the panel, not some generic icon used to represent it.
5.  Change the mouse cursor to the grippy hand thing.

Now, this "fixes" the problem of the Remove (plugin) menu item: you
don't need it anymore, and hopefully people won't be asking "yearrrrgh!
 how do I remove panel items!?!?!".  Now we just have a single "Remove
Panel" menu item (or just "Remove", under the "Panel" section, whichever
is preferred).

Are there any a11y problems with this design?  I can't imagine Firefox
would have adopted it if there were, though...

> Me: "Brain, would you figure out how to remove this panel plugin for
> me, plzkthk"
> Brain: "Sure. Let's right click, that usually does that kind of thing,
> hmm, look at that Manage Panel Items, bingo!"
> Me: "Uh, brain, I think that's just for adding panel items"
> Brain: "Right! Uhhhh, well what's close to it *Scans down* Remove!"
> Me: "Well done brain! *Click*"
> Panel: "Hahaha! You're trying to remove the panel! Click canel or
> exit, but due to a bug they do the same thing! *Evil laugh*"
> Me: "Stupid brain!"

*giggle*

> There has been some serious investment in trying to "fix" the right
> click menu for the panel. ALL of it has centered around trying to
> shoehorn plugin specific functionality and panel specific
> functionality in the same menu, with stuff that is both (Like "Manage
> panel items") needing a really long name to make clear what it does.
> 
> Which is just too much damn work for an action that should generally
> be uncommon. The "manage" dialog already handles removing through a
> nicely usable DND interface, which conviniently is just about
> impossible to fsck up and accidentally remove a plugin.

Yes, exactly... See above ^_^.  My only initial gripe with this is that
people don't know that you can use DnD.

> Then you can remove the dummy items in the menu for organization. Move
> "<ITEM> Preferences" down to the bottom of the menu, which is the most
> common menu choice, and for 90% of panel configs means it ought to be
> at the bottom.
> 
> Panel Properties
> Remove This Panel
> Add New Panel
> Manage Panel Items
> Tasklist Properties
> 
> And extra menu items can go underneath, since if the plugin adds
> items, they are likely to be the most wanted options, and it nicely
> segments the menu into two sections without the need for labels.

I think you're forgetting one kinda important bit: not everyone has
their panel on the bottom of the screen.  When you right click a
screen-top panel, the closest item to the mouse pointer is the one at
the top of the menu.

> I feel like this is much more usuable, and dodges the workaround that
> a confirmation dialog causes.
> 
> If this was all Too Much Information - blame Brian. He asked for it.

And this is exactly what I wanted; thanks.

	-brian

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