[yast-devel] yast2-ncurses has a status line :)
Hola brave yast hackers! As I kept receiving user complaints that the navigation in yast text-mode UI is a bit clumsy, I took my ITO and decided to do something with it. Here's the first bigger improvement (I hope so): We have many 'cheat-codes' for quick access to push buttons in text-mode in the form of Fxx keys, but: 1) hardly anyone knows about those 2) it is because they are well hidden in a pop-up that appears if F1 key is pressed (real hackers use F1 help key as the very last resort ;-) ) 3) this popup is so confusing that it leaves user even more clueless than (s)he was before (see ttps://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=335291) Now ncurses UI has a nice contrast status line where all Fxx cheat codes for current dialog are listed, as you can see in attached screenshot (I used yast2-users module as an example, because it makes quite intensive use of Fxx keys). User has these quick shortcuts in front of his/her eyes at all times and can use them right away without having to open a help popup or to remember that e.g. F10 usually stands for 'Finish'. The only disadvantage is that the status line takes yet another line off the small (and sometimes really crowded) text-mode screen :( Anyway, so far it's just a prototype, I'm thinkin about disabling status line completely should the screen be smaller than e.g. 25 lines ... So, enjoy this improvement and feel free to use Fxx shortcuts in your modules more intensively (hint: add `opt(`key_Fxx) to your widget to make it quickly accesible by selected Fxx key) B. -- \\\\\ Katarina Machalkova \\\\\\\__o YaST developer __\\\\\\\'/_ & hedgehog painter
Dňa Tuesday 18 December 2007 12:20:28 Katarina Machalkova ste napísal:
Hola brave yast hackers!
As I kept receiving user complaints that the navigation in yast text-mode UI is a bit clumsy, I took my ITO and decided to do something with it. Here's the first bigger improvement (I hope so):
We have many 'cheat-codes' for quick access to push buttons in text-mode in the form of Fxx keys, but: 1) hardly anyone knows about those 2) it is because they are well hidden in a pop-up that appears if F1 key is pressed (real hackers use F1 help key as the very last resort ;-) ) 3) this popup is so confusing that it leaves user even more clueless than (s)he was before (see ttps://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=335291)
Now ncurses UI has a nice contrast status line where all Fxx cheat codes for current dialog are listed, as you can see in attached screenshot (I used yast2-users module as an example, because it makes quite intensive use of Fxx keys). User has these quick shortcuts in front of his/her eyes at all times and can use them right away without having to open a help popup or to remember that e.g. F10 usually stands for 'Finish'.
Wow, this is really nice!
The only disadvantage is that the status line takes yet another line off the small (and sometimes really crowded) text-mode screen :( Anyway, so far it's just a prototype, I'm thinkin about disabling status line completely should the screen be smaller than e.g. 25 lines ...
Sounds good, just prepare for the bug reports ;-)
So, enjoy this improvement and feel free to use Fxx shortcuts in your modules more intensively (hint: add `opt(`key_Fxx) to your widget to make it quickly accesible by selected Fxx key)
Stano -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
On Tuesday 18 December 2007 12:20:28 Katarina Machalkova wrote:
So, enjoy this improvement and feel free to use Fxx shortcuts in your modules more intensively (hint: add `opt(`key_Fxx) to your widget to make it quickly accesible by selected Fxx key)
Wonderful -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
Katarina Machalkova wrote:
Now ncurses UI has a nice contrast status line where all Fxx cheat codes for current dialog are listed, as you can see in attached screenshot (I used yast2-users module as an example, because it makes quite intensive use of Fxx keys).
Great! What about making the F numbers more visible e.g. using other or inverted colors, just like in 'mc'? -- Best Regards Ladislav Slezák Yast Developer ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SUSE LINUX, s.r.o. e-mail: lslezak@suse.cz Lihovarská 1060/12 tel: +420 284 028 960 190 00 Prague 9 fax: +420 284 028 951 Czech Republic http://www.suse.cz/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
Now ncurses UI has a nice contrast status line where all Fxx cheat codes for current dialog are listed, as you can see in attached screenshot
Great! What about making the F numbers more visible e.g. using other or inverted colors, just like in 'mc'?
It's certainly possible, but not trivial. However, I accept patches :) B. -- A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
* Katarina Machalkova <kmachalkova@suse.cz> [2007-12-18 12:20]:
Hola brave yast hackers!
As I kept receiving user complaints that the navigation in yast text-mode UI is a bit clumsy, I took my ITO and decided to do something with it. Here's the first bigger improvement (I hope so):
BTW: Is it possible to remove the help window on the left on user behalf? Maybe pressing Fx toggles just the help window on the left, regardless in which YaST module the user is. This (mostly useless) help window always disturbed me in the ncurses user interface since a Terminal has clearly less text space than a Qt GUI. (No, I don't belong to the group of people that use fullscreen terminals.) Thanks, Bernhard -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Bernhard Walle wrote:
* Katarina Machalkova <kmachalkova@suse.cz> [2007-12-18 12:20]:
Hola brave yast hackers!
As I kept receiving user complaints that the navigation in yast text-mode UI is a bit clumsy, I took my ITO and decided to do something with it. Here's the first bigger improvement (I hope so):
BTW: Is it possible to remove the help window on the left on user behalf? Maybe pressing Fx toggles just the help window on the left, regardless in which YaST module the user is.
This sounds like a good idea ;) e.g., F12 is probably not reserved. Additionally ncurses could even remember the help-text state for its next run however I don't think this is possible because YaST isn't root-only and we would have to store the state for every single user. Lukas -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4-svn0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHaNfFVSqMdRCqTiwRArSTAJ9IpN8lEDo+nJPIl1yK1jBTkYN8JQCfaZmz qNb1/lZcQPnKRPe/aSty02w= =m+A4 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
* Lukas Ocilka <lukas.ocilka@suse.cz> [2007-12-19 09:35]:
and we would have to store the state for every single user.
Which is the case for other programs with custom settings, too. :) Thanks, Bernhard -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
Am Mittwoch 19 Dezember 2007 schrieb Lukas Ocilka:
Bernhard Walle wrote:
* Katarina Machalkova <kmachalkova@suse.cz> [2007-12-18 12:20]:
Hola brave yast hackers!
As I kept receiving user complaints that the navigation in yast text-mode UI is a bit clumsy, I took my ITO and decided to do something with it. Here's the first bigger improvement (I hope so):
BTW: Is it possible to remove the help window on the left on user behalf? Maybe pressing Fx toggles just the help window on the left, regardless in which YaST module the user is.
This sounds like a good idea ;) e.g., F12 is probably not reserved.
Additionally ncurses could even remember the help-text state for its next run however I don't think this is possible because YaST isn't root-only and we would have to store the state for every single user.
For the record: yast-gtk never had help inline and I moved it to a popup for yast-qt too, so perhaps ncurses should follow the crowd and provide help by popup only too. Greetings, Stephan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
On Wednesday 19 December 2007 09:59, Stephan Kulow wrote:
For the record: yast-gtk never had help inline and I moved it to a popup for yast-qt too, so perhaps ncurses should follow the crowd and provide help by popup only too.
Sigh... Here goes another feature we always got a lot of positive feedback for, in particular in reviews. CU -- Stefan Hundhammer <sh@suse.de> Penguin by conviction. YaST2 Development SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Nürnberg, Germany -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
Am Mittwoch 19 Dezember 2007 schrieb Stefan Hundhammer:
On Wednesday 19 December 2007 09:59, Stephan Kulow wrote:
For the record: yast-gtk never had help inline and I moved it to a popup for yast-qt too, so perhaps ncurses should follow the crowd and provide help by popup only too.
Sigh...
Here goes another feature we always got a lot of positive feedback for, in particular in reviews.
Any URLs? Greetings, Stephan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
On Wednesday 19 December 2007 12:10, Stephan Kulow wrote:
Here goes another feature we always got a lot of positive feedback for, in particular in reviews.
Any URLs?
I'll find them again. Just like I did in the past when we had this exact discussion. Killing the help panel seems to be a favourite sport for everybody joining discussions about YaST... ;-) CU -- Stefan Hundhammer <sh@suse.de> Penguin by conviction. YaST2 Development SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Nürnberg, Germany -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
On Wednesday 19 December 2007 12:35, Stefan Hundhammer wrote:
Any URLs?
I'll find them again.
No luck: I threw away the paper printouts from older reviews that I had collected. And searching Google for the relevant keywords returns a zillion irrelevant results, but no useful ones. Having a good installer becoming old news since a couple of years, all you'll ever read about the installation is something along the lines of http://www.madpenguin.org/cms/?m=show&id=6899 "Linux has gained so much ground over the past few years in regard to installation that it's mind blowing. It really is. What once was immature and cumbersome almost all the way across the board has been fine tuned to the point where it's a non-issue for those trying to decide if they are ready to try Linux for the first time. That seems to be a common question and/or concern of most new users I've spoken to over the years... they always want to know if I think they can install it by themselves or maybe they're just concerned they won't understand the new terminology. No matter what the worry, Novell/SUSE is on top of their game in this area. Gone are the days we need to have intimate knowledge of the hardware that our software will be installed onto. The major distros have led the way in this respect and it's duly noted. Novell/SUSE isn't the only one of course, but they've helped pave the road, there's no doubt." http://www.dvd-guides.com/content/view/221/104/ "The installer is the one we know from the past SUSE versions. It offers excellent hardware detection and easy wizards to setup any aspect of the installation you will imagine. Beginners may find it too complicated at start, especially when you compare it with the very simple installers others distros offer, but there are instructions and help for about everything." If there are any more comments about installation, it is because some piece of hardware was not properly detected, but it's never about the installation process or any gory details of it any more. The days of detailed reviews of the installation process or any configuration modules are gone. People take that for granted. On one side, this is flattering for us (following the old Unix concept that "no news is good news"), on the other hand this does not give us any new feedback. We could dig back to reviews of older versions (8.x, 7.x), but I have doubts if that would be considered relevant in this forum, so I won't spend any more time on that. So all that remains for me is to reiterate that there have been a number of reviews in the past (printed in c't magazine or online reviews) that explicitly mentioned that it's a good thing to have the online help visible by default. CU -- Stefan Hundhammer <sh@suse.de> Penguin by conviction. YaST2 Development SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Nürnberg, Germany -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
Qua, 2007-12-19 às 09:59 +0100, Stephan Kulow escreveu:
For the record: yast-gtk never had help inline and I moved it to a popup for yast-qt too, so perhaps ncurses should follow the crowd and provide help by popup only too.
Hi, I think we still had help as a side pane for 10.2. But I wasn't happy with it, and the final drop was that it got on the way of screen readers. If you guys are following the same path here, it would be cool to re-think the help material. I think most of it is an insult to the user; it describes the interface elements, while failing to explain what the tool is for, and how it will do what it purposes (it should state that it will overwrite file X, Y, and Z, and restart daemon A and B). Some troubleshooting is also in serious need. The lack of overview help material is not only a result of the limited space on the help box, but actual limitations on what its content can be. I would have at least help on the current screen and access to general information on the tool. Eventually, I think help should be completely navigational, possibly using the desktops help programs (KHelpCenter on KDE, Yelp on Gnome). I think it would be nice for Yast to have the syntax to describe the various tools path. The YCP would declare some hooks to build the various yast pages, then use Show(page_id). On top of that, you'd have information on how they relate to each other, and the help material. This would allow more control for the UIs on how they present the interface. For instance, on Gnome, when the user presses "Add Printer", the subsequent dialog should be presented as a new window, with a guideline information on the several steps to complete the task. The current approach where the window morphs into different usage paradigm is pretty awkward. Now, we also need some little text describing the current step. I would make this really small, and let the UI render it as it wants. For instance, as a sub-header. Or for KDE, like KControl modules do, with a little help button that pops up that help with a link to the full thing. We may also want to think on providing tooltips, though I think they are of less priority. Also, it seems that the installer is becoming more RAM expensive at every release. Having a dedicated box to help won't help, because it will encourage people to expand it, and, as it is, the help text stays in memory, including when you go to sub-pages, the parent pages will still be in memory. Cheers, Ricardo -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
On Wednesday 19 December 2007 12:12, Ricardo Cruz wrote:
If you guys are following the same path here, it would be cool to re-think the help material. I think most of it is an insult to the user; it describes the interface elements, while failing to explain what the tool is for, and how it will do what it purposes (it should state that it will overwrite file X, Y, and Z, and restart daemon A and B).
Exactly. This has been my argument for quite a while. But reading our help texts I find very little information what anything I could configure in that dialog is all about or why I would want or need to configure it. But I always get lectured about how to use an "Add" or "Edit" button. (BTW half an hour ago I deleted a nearly completed mail to this list suggesting to drop help texts alltogether for their overall lack of usefulness)
Some troubleshooting is also in serious need.
Right. This, however, is where we would need serious assistance from our documentation department. This goes far beyond what we as the development team can do. And then there is the issue of how to present it and disk space constraints (during installation). In an ideal world I would like to have HTML-based troubleshooting guides that preferably also include some mechanism to invoke the relevant YaST module. Our currently ongoing efforts to improve the YaST control center are heading into this direction. Help texts would also include Wikipedia links (so we could reuse a lot of very good existing documentation). [snip]
Also, it seems that the installer is becoming more RAM expensive at every release. Having a dedicated box to help won't help, because it will encourage people to expand it, and, as it is, the help text stays in memory, including when you go to sub-pages, the parent pages will still be in memory.
I am pretty sure that help texts are not what is clogging up memory. We are talking about some kilobytes here (or more usually about a couple of hundred bytes). This is not where all those megabytes go. CU -- Stefan Hundhammer <sh@suse.de> Penguin by conviction. YaST2 Development SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Nürnberg, Germany -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
Ricardo Cruz <rpmcruz@alunos.dcc.fc.up.pt> writes:
I think it would be nice for Yast to have the syntax to describe the various tools path. The YCP would declare some hooks to build the various yast pages, then use Show(page_id).
Yes, something along these lines. In the "official" manuals (the opensuse-manual_{en,XX} packages) often good background information is available and there we also offer procedure descriptions, how you can use a yast module to accomplish a task such as installing a software package or partitioning a disk. opensuse-manual_en (HTML falvior) is installed by default and most of its sections are to be identified by IDs. The long term goal should be to find a way to connect or link both the SVNs; the yast SVN with the YCP source files and the documentation SVN with the XML source files for the manuals. Keeping all this in sync would probably be a challenge. Then we probably could keep terse yast help text and add pointers from there to the manuals (HTML flavior). In the manuals, the user will also find sections labeled "For More Information" that usually consists of links to external Web sites (x.org.org, opensuse.org, wikipedia.org, etc.). -- Karl Eichwalder R&D / Documentation SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nuernberg) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
BTW: Is it possible to remove the help window on the left on user behalf? Maybe pressing Fx toggles just the help window on the left, regardless in which YaST module the user is.
This (mostly useless) help window always disturbed me in the ncurses user interface since a Terminal has clearly less text space than a Qt GUI. (No, I don't belong to the group of people that use fullscreen terminals.)
I always wanted to remove the help window from ncurses UI since it only uselessly takes too much space :) But 'We need help texts to be visible at all times, poor user gets lost otherwise' people just shouted much louder than those who'd like to have it visible only when user requests it. See this (quite heated) discussion: http://lists.opensuse.org/yast-devel/2007-06/msg00132.html Anyway, to make it official, anyone willing to file a Bugzilla enhancement, or FaTE request for me ? ;-) B. -- \\\\\ Katarina Machalkova \\\\\\\__o YaST developer __\\\\\\\'/_ & hedgehog painter
Dne Wednesday 19 of December 2007 10:12:18 Katarina Machalkova napsal(a):
BTW: Is it possible to remove the help window on the left on user behalf? Maybe pressing Fx toggles just the help window on the left, regardless in which YaST module the user is.
This (mostly useless) help window always disturbed me in the ncurses user interface since a Terminal has clearly less text space than a Qt GUI. (No, I don't belong to the group of people that use fullscreen terminals.)
I always wanted to remove the help window from ncurses UI since it only uselessly takes too much space :) But 'We need help texts to be visible at all times, poor user gets lost otherwise' people just shouted much louder than those who'd like to have it visible only when user requests it.
On the other hand, now when we have the status line with "F1 - Help" where one expects it, I think that we can move this forward. Also the YaST survey showed that the amount of users who want help shown after the F1 button is pushed is higher than the ones who want it always visible. -- Regards, Jiri Srain YaST Team Leader --------------------------------------------------------------------- SUSE LINUX, s.r.o. e-mail: jsrain@suse.cz Lihovarska 1060/12 tel: +420 284 028 959 190 00 Praha 9 fax: +420 284 028 951 Czech Republic http://www.suse.cz
BTW: Is it possible to remove the help window on the left on user behalf? Maybe pressing Fx toggles just the help window on the left, regardless in which YaST module the user is.
This (mostly useless) help window always disturbed me in the ncurses user interface since a Terminal has clearly less text space than a Qt GUI. (No, I don't belong to the group of people that use fullscreen terminals.)
I always wanted to remove the help window from ncurses UI since it only uselessly takes too much space :) But 'We need help texts to be visible at all times, poor user gets lost otherwise' people just shouted much louder than those who'd like to have it visible only when user requests it.
See this (quite heated) discussion: http://lists.opensuse.org/yast-devel/2007-06/msg00132.html Hmm, I see only Rebecca saying, help is required (which is true, but she argues against self explaining dialogs not about having help inline) and Stefan, who I kind of convinced already in saying that I will argue with the
Am Mittwoch 19 Dezember 2007 schrieb Katarina Machalkova: people coming wanting to have it back. Seeing the list archive though I see more people wanting to get rid of it :)
Anyway, to make it official, anyone willing to file a Bugzilla enhancement, or FaTE request for me ? ;-)
Well, Bernhard? Greetings, Stephan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
* Stephan Kulow <coolo@kde.org> [2007-12-19 10:31]:
Anyway, to make it official, anyone willing to file a Bugzilla enhancement, or FaTE request for me ? ;-) Well, Bernhard?
FATE #303291: Remove left help window in ncurses UI Thanks, Bernhard -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
Hi, Personally I like the status line a lot and from a usability point of view it is a great improvement as it enables the user to see important commands at a glance. This makes the work in ncurses much more efficient and less wearisome. Or to say it without buzzwords: It makes ncurses much cooler :-) Concerning the f1-help issue: It is perfectly fine that help is only visible by request since most users don't expect any help from help texts and we rather continue to make our modules so clear that they don't require any help text per default. Cu, Martin -- Martin Schmidkunz User Experience Specialist martin.schmidkunz@novell.com +49 (0) 911 740 53-346 ----------------------------------------------------------------- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Novell, Inc. SUSE® Linux Enterprise 10 Your Linux is ready http://www.novell.com/linux -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
On st 19. prosince 2007, Stephan Kulow wrote:
Am Mittwoch 19 Dezember 2007 schrieb Katarina Machalkova:
BTW: Is it possible to remove the help window on the left on user behalf? Maybe pressing Fx toggles just the help window on the left, regardless in which YaST module the user is.
This (mostly useless) help window always disturbed me in the ncurses user interface since a Terminal has clearly less text space than a Qt GUI. (No, I don't belong to the group of people that use fullscreen terminals.)
I always wanted to remove the help window from ncurses UI since it only uselessly takes too much space :) But 'We need help texts to be visible at all times, poor user gets lost otherwise' people just shouted much louder than those who'd like to have it visible only when user requests it.
See this (quite heated) discussion: http://lists.opensuse.org/yast-devel/2007-06/msg00132.html
Hmm, I see only Rebecca saying, help is required (which is true, but she argues against self explaining dialogs not about having help inline) and Stefan, who I kind of convinced already in saying that I will argue with the people coming wanting to have it back. Seeing the list archive though I see more people wanting to get rid of it :)
I really don't like the (now very common) rule of deciding what do users want after asking them on mailing list. Most users, who are content or even happy with current status just don't react on such mails and do not write bug reports. Jiri -- Jiri Suchomel SUSE LINUX, s.r.o. e-mail: jsuchome@suse.cz Lihovarská 1060/12 tel: +420 284 028 960 190 00 Praha 9, Czech Republic http://www.suse.cz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
* Jiří Suchomel <jsuchome@suse.cz> [2007-12-19 11:00]:
I really don't like the (now very common) rule of deciding what do users want after asking them on mailing list. Most users, who are content or even happy with current status just don't react on such mails and do not write bug reports.
And the conclusion then is to never change anything? Thanks, Bernhard -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
On st 19. prosince 2007, Bernhard Walle wrote:
* Jiří Suchomel <jsuchome@suse.cz> [2007-12-19 11:00]:
I really don't like the (now very common) rule of deciding what do users want after asking them on mailing list. Most users, who are content or even happy with current status just don't react on such mails and do not write bug reports.
And the conclusion then is to never change anything?
The conclusion is that we should be more careful when changing the settled behavior. Jiri -- Jiri Suchomel SUSE LINUX, s.r.o. e-mail: jsuchome@suse.cz Lihovarská 1060/12 tel: +420 284 028 960 190 00 Praha 9, Czech Republic http://www.suse.cz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
On Wednesday 19 December 2007 11:00, Jiří Suchomel wrote:
I really don't like the (now very common) rule of deciding what do users want after asking them on mailing list. Most users, who are content or even happy with current status just don't react on such mails and do not write bug reports.
You have a very valid point there. CU -- Stefan Hundhammer <sh@suse.de> Penguin by conviction. YaST2 Development SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Nürnberg, Germany -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
* Stephan Kulow <coolo@kde.org> [Dec 19. 2007 10:32]:
Hmm, I see only Rebecca saying, help is required (which is true, but she argues against self explaining dialogs not about having help inline) and Stefan, who I kind of convinced already in saying that I will argue with the people coming wanting to have it back. Seeing the list archive though I see more people wanting to get rid of it :)
Looking at the YaST survey results, people agree to get rid of it and have it only available on demand (pressing F1). Klaus --- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
On Wednesday 19 December 2007 11:47, Klaus Kaempf wrote:
Looking at the YaST survey results, people agree to get rid of it and have it only available on demand (pressing F1).
How many novice users typically participate in such surveys? Are the people who answered this survey represantative for our target audience? CU -- Stefan Hundhammer <sh@suse.de> Penguin by conviction. YaST2 Development SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Nürnberg, Germany -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
* Stefan Hundhammer <sh@suse.de> [Dec 19. 2007 12:47]:
On Wednesday 19 December 2007 11:47, Klaus Kaempf wrote:
Looking at the YaST survey results, people agree to get rid of it and have it only available on demand (pressing F1).
How many novice users typically participate in such surveys? Are the people who answered this survey represantative for our target audience?
If not them, who else ? Some single reviewer ? Someone on a mailing list ? We should probably stop looking at single responses and watch the competition instead. At least those distributions attracting a significant amount of (new) Linux users. Klaus --- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
On Wednesday 19 December 2007 12:51, Klaus Kaempf wrote:
We should probably stop looking at single responses and watch the competition instead. At least those distributions attracting a significant amount of (new) Linux users.
IMHO we should finally STOP copying what others are doing and try to set standards by innovation instead. We tried to copy Windows for a long time. Now we'd try to copy what Ubuntu does? If all we can do (or what we want to achive) is copy, we are doomed. A copy can always only be as good as the original, but never better. We should be innovating, not copying. CU -- Stefan Hundhammer <sh@suse.de> Penguin by conviction. YaST2 Development SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Nürnberg, Germany -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
* Stefan Hundhammer <sh@suse.de> [Dec 19. 2007 12:55]:
On Wednesday 19 December 2007 12:51, Klaus Kaempf wrote:
We should probably stop looking at single responses and watch the competition instead. At least those distributions attracting a significant amount of (new) Linux users.
IMHO we should finally STOP copying what others are doing and try to set standards by innovation instead.
I didn't say 'copy' but 'watch'. And its not about blindly doing what others do but about setting boundaries. Innovation is only useful, if it serves a particular need. And watching projects attracting lots of people is useful in determining their needs. Another boundary for us is resources. Looking at the majority of YaST helptexts, it doesn't seem as we have a sufficient amount of help text writers to fill the space. Klaus --- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
Qua, 2007-12-19 às 12:47 +0100, Stefan Hundhammer escreveu:
On Wednesday 19 December 2007 11:47, Klaus Kaempf wrote:
Looking at the YaST survey results, people agree to get rid of it and have it only available on demand (pressing F1).
How many novice users typically participate in such surveys? Are the people who answered this survey represantative for our target audience?
I think there is space for having a two-line description of the current step, as a sub-header or in another form, depending on the UI. For instance, "Select your printers model. If missing, choose the closest one. (more)" I would certainly argue to have help categorized, so that the UI can either compact it into the box, or render it in another form. Cheers, Ricardo -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
* Katarina Machalkova <kmachalkova@suse.cz> [2007-12-19 10:12]:
BTW: Is it possible to remove the help window on the left on user behalf? Maybe pressing Fx toggles just the help window on the left, regardless in which YaST module the user is.
This (mostly useless) help window always disturbed me in the ncurses user interface since a Terminal has clearly less text space than a Qt GUI. (No, I don't belong to the group of people that use fullscreen terminals.)
I always wanted to remove the help window from ncurses UI since it only uselessly takes too much space :) But 'We need help texts to be visible at all times, poor user gets lost otherwise' people just shouted much louder than those who'd like to have it visible only when user requests it.
Well, during installation, that might be ok since ncurses is also used if X doesn't come up on poorly supported hardware. I also had this, and configuring X afterwards was no problem then (SUSE 9.3). But *after* installation, ncurses is only used by people who know what they do. DAUs use Qt or Gtk. So for me, that argument is just silly. Thanks, Bernhard -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
On Wednesday 19 December 2007 10:41, Bernhard Walle wrote:
But *after* installation, ncurses is only used by people who know what they do.
Uh - yes, is that so? How exactly do you define "people who know what they are doing"? Do you really think we have any user who is an expert in all aspects? This is yet another very old discussion. Every once in a while some people suggest we make an "expert mode" the user can select initially, so he can choose "expert" or "novice" and then get a lot of expert options for everything or just simple questions. The argument against that has always been that while somebody may be an expert in some aspects, this does not mean that he knows everything about every aspect. A network expert might be completely lost with, say, X configuration or with package dependencies. This is why we always begin simple, but whereever useful we have an "Expert" button or an "Expert" tab. So users can gradually refine the amount of expert options they want to deal with. Add to this the fact that sometimes even experts want a quick and simple setup for certain things. This is very similar to ncurses usage. Those users who know that an ncurses mode exists and how to start it may be experts in some areas, but that does not know that they can do completely without help in some other areas.
DAUs use Qt or Gtk.
This (and the reverse conclusion even more) is nonsense. CU -- Stefan Hundhammer <sh@suse.de> Penguin by conviction. YaST2 Development SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Nürnberg, Germany -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
* Stefan Hundhammer <sh@suse.de> [2007-12-19 12:23]:
On Wednesday 19 December 2007 10:41, Bernhard Walle wrote:
But *after* installation, ncurses is only used by people who know what they do.
Uh - yes, is that so?
How exactly do you define "people who know what they are doing"? Do you really think we have any user who is an expert in all aspects?
No, but they are experts enough to hit the F1 button when they need help. I didn't say we should remove the texts entirely. Thanks, Bernhard -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
Current status of the feature: 1. No more 'Press F1 for help' in the topmost line. 2. No more Fxx-key bindings description popup after pressing F1, all that information has been moved to bottom status line *) 3. 'Fxx' text rendered in reversed colours to make it more visible (thanks, lslezak and jbohac for pointing this out) The code has been basically just #ifdef-ed out, should we some time in the future decide to restore the old way of describing Fxx keys e.g. for the lack of space reason Yet there are still some bugs, I'm working on removing them all. Enjoy! B. *) F1 will be probably reserved to show help text (now in left wizard panel) in a separate pop-up window (fate #303291 - evaluation by PM) -- _-(' ')- Katarina Machalkova `(%%) YaST developer // \\ & sheep painter
participants (14)
-
Bernhard Walle -
Duncan Mac-Vicar Prett -
Jiri Srain -
Jiří Suchomel -
Karl Eichwalder -
Katarina Machalkova -
Klaus Kaempf -
Ladislav Slezak -
Lukas Ocilka -
Martin Schmidkunz -
Ricardo Cruz -
Stanislav Visnovsky -
Stefan Hundhammer -
Stephan Kulow