looking forward

Kilmatead · Post by **Kilmatead** » 2009 Dec 04, 07:51

I'm aging gracefully (at least in my imagination); I have an affinity for underused icons - they get lonely, don't you know.

Tarnished gold, crusted lava... how was I to know you were just cheekily needling nikos?

It is a little "in your face" when opening 'fit width' on a 24" LCD...

(Yes, I live in the dark; I'm medieval, what can I say...)

Kilmatead · Post by **Kilmatead** » 2009 Dec 04, 08:29

Besides, the really important thing we all want to know, is where do you buy the t-shirts? (I looked up www.spuriouszabkatmerchandice.com but the site seems to be down...)

(As you're so proud of your 1000 pictures...)

narayan · Post by **narayan** » 2009 Dec 04, 08:35

Well, the UM is designed to be viewed only at 100% zoom.
Reason: All images get blurred at ANY other (higher/lower) zoom.

At 100% zoom, it will look natural.

But if you use a 24" widescreen at close range AND zoom in fully, naturally the logo would look like a brochure of Dubai!

***
BTW the other change you have made is to open the Pages panel, which is hardly of any use in a manual.

By default, the UM opens the Bookmarks panel, which is more useful for navigation.

Just my 2 cents!

Kilmatead · Post by **Kilmatead** » 2009 Dec 04, 08:55

narayan wrote:By default, the UM opens the Bookmarks panel, which is more useful for navigation.

Actually the viewer seems to think the default ought to be Thumbnails Panel for some reason (overriding your default), so i just zip around using the Contents links and MMB scrolling anyway... I'm not too hardpressed to search the preferences to change it (ironic, considering this thread is supposed to be about UI's)...

And the age-old problem with larger displays is the inverse proportion they have with text-size. At 100% it's readable alright, but just "that little bit" too small for comfort. Never mind that 2/3's of the screen is wasted in widescreen...

narayan · Post by **narayan** » 2009 Dec 04, 12:25

So that's a catch 22? At 100% it's too small, and at larger zooms, the figures are blurred?

@ Buying Nikos' T-shirts:
I don't know if Nikos ever had anything made to sell - I know he gave away some free T-shirts at an event.

The T-shirt he is wearing in the photo is my creation with GIMP.

So you could donate instead.

BTW in case you were wondering, he does not (usually) have that halo behind his head- that also was done with GIMP!

Kilmatead · Post by **Kilmatead** » 2009 Dec 04, 13:33

narayan wrote:So that's a catch 22? At 100% it's too small, and at larger zooms, the figures are blurred?

A common ailment of large-screen LCD's, many people think "great, more real estate" - but add higher resolutions and the default dpi wreaks havoc with font sizes. I usually run windows at around %115, else everything is illegible... unfortunately windows dpi setting doesn't extend into most applications. To be fair, the UM at "fit width" (widescreen) is kicked to %188 which is admittedly ridiculous. You can't win for losing, as they say.

narayan wrote:he does not (usually) have that halo behind his head

I thought it was meant to be a gloriole as in the Greek Orthodox Icons with the rays of light illuminating his domain - the expression says it all. Choirs singing, candles burning, just a normal day at Zabkat Enterprises.

...and priests in black gowns
were walking their rounds,
binding with briers
my joys and desires...

-- Robert Burns

We could have a caption competition to raise money for t-shirts... using that picture, like "That pretender Magellan took all the booze again" sort of thing.

narayan · Post by **narayan** » 2009 Dec 05, 07:21

Nikos, also have a look at Preferences window of Audacity.
It's right side pane has all windows controls: Pull down menus, radio buttons, check boxes, input boxes, AND sliders.

Looks very rich and uncluttered.

It also has a beautiful Key Bindings section that can show+edit all keyboard shortcuts.

check it out!

http://audacity.googlecode.com/files/au ... 1.3.10.exe
(10 MB)

Post by **nikos** » 2009 Dec 05, 07:36

screenshots please!

narayan · Post by **narayan** » 2009 Dec 05, 08:30

Just emailed a flash movie to you

Kilmatead · Post by **Kilmatead** » 2009 Dec 05, 08:44

Audacity's is quite nice - except it's not really pushed for complexity... the subject "tree" (for lack of a better term) doesn't have any depth, containing only 15 single entries, no branches.

That said, it's easy to see where it could go, once x2's (slightly more cluttered) structure were placed atop it, and advanced tooltips (and/or UM links) were added.

Narayan's right about the key bindings, it's perfect - once the window is resized up a bit. (Really nice mouse binding as well, but I'm not sure that applies so much for these purposes, plus it's non-configurable.)

narayan · Post by **narayan** » 2009 Dec 05, 09:54

That's right: Our tree would NEED to have more branches and subnodes to cater to the larger number of topics in x2, and their groupings.

The most critical factor is how the tree is split (branched), and how many levels are allowed in it.

* Small tree means each pane becomes cluttered with lots of controls.
* An elaborate tree means fewer controls in each pane.

But the main reason I showed the Audacity example is that the earlier examples did not have the vast range of controls that Audacity has.

WimdeLange · Post by **WimdeLange** » 2009 Dec 06, 18:27

I go for the combination. Suggestion, add a search field? Faster to find a special option

pschroeter · Post by **pschroeter** » 2009 Dec 12, 04:21

I think its the clearest, especially when you want to change something that you changed a few weeks ago and then go back and sort of know where what you changed was and have to half search for it.

narayan · Post by **narayan** » 2009 Dec 12, 04:40

So the summary:

Combo with search.

And if possible, add a History tab (on the left, at par with the tree tab).

zabkat support forum

looking forward

how would you prefer xplorer2 properties?

I vote for netscape-style (A) thingy