Re: Size grips

Aaron J. Seigo wrote:

> On Monday 18 June 2007, Dmitry Suzdalev wrote:
>> Well, Matt is right, I think we should consult some
usability person
>> (Aaron, are you reading this?) before adding
sizegrips throughout
>> kdegames...
> 
> either add it to all or none for consistency. and yes,
size grips are a
> bigger and more obvious target to hit.
> 

Hi all. I'm not subscibed to the list, though I read it
occasionally.

I've found this conversation, and I'd like to add my
opinion.

I'm not fond of the idea of having the size grip in-window,
basically 
because that's normally handled by the window manager (and
because it looks 
awful :-P).

Anyway, if the consensus is that we want the size grip, I
think it should 
not be handled per application; either we enable it (in
KApplication?) 
everywhere, or we do not. 

I still hope this could be offered as a configuration (maybe
in the style 
preferences?) option. It may be useful to enable it, if
"other" desktop 
environments do so too.

By the way, the Oxygen window decoration seem to have large
enough resize 
grips. So I'm not sure this feature is really needed.

One Idea I have ad at a time was to have a resize button in
the window 
titlebar - instead of dragging the window from it's
bottom-right corner, 
you could resize from it's top-right corner. Some of the
KWin decoration 
let you have the resize button, but the feature
implementation is half 
baked... I could work on that, if people think that's useful
(but I'm not 
very confident they will).

Ciao,
Luciano 
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On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 07:40 pm, Luciano Montanaro wrote:
> Hi all. I'm not subscibed to the list, though I read it
occasionally.
>
Hi, Luciano, and welcome.  What list are you usually on? 
Or
where in KDE are you from?

> I'm not fond of the idea of having the size grip
in-window, basically
> because that's normally handled by the window manager
(and because
> it looks awful :-P).
>
That's your opinion, but I think the size-grip widget looks
OK and certainly
no worse than the buttons at the right of every title-bar. 
However this is a
discussion about functionality.  It is not easy (for me) to
hit the precise
spot in the window border for resizing (using Plastik
style).  Others
have said they find a size grip easier to hit.

> Anyway, if the consensus is that we want the size grip,
I think it should
> not be handled per application; either we enable it (in
KApplication?)
> everywhere, or we do not.
>
I think Aaron's idea is for us to "experiment"
with size grips in KDE Games,
then maybe we go for a universal KDE approach if the
experiment works
out OK.  It's just one line of code that adds it to a status
bar, so not a
large investment of development effort.

> I still hope this could be offered as a configuration
(maybe in the style
> preferences?) option. It may be useful to enable it, if
"other" desktop
> environments do so too.
>
Absolutely.  I certainly believe people who no longer have
the clear
eyesight and excellent eye-hand co-ordination they had in
their 20s
(and that would be nearly everybody over 35) should have
some
such option available.

> By the way, the Oxygen window decoration seem to have
large enough
> resize grips. So I'm not sure this feature is really
needed.
>
Now there you have the advantage.  Where can we see a
screenshot
or mockup of this window decoration and judge for
ourselves?

Cheers, Ian W.
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On giovedì 21 giugno 2007, Ian Wadham wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 07:40 pm, Luciano Montanaro wrote:
> > Hi all. I'm not subscibed to the list, though I
read it occasionally.
>
> Hi, Luciano, and welcome.  What list are you usually
on?  Or
> where in KDE are you from?

Oops! Now I have subscribed... The message bounced back, and
I'm not sure 
there is actually a moderator moderating... I tried writing
some time ago 
too, and I didn't see my message in the  archives.

However, I'm already subscribed to most KDE related mailing
lists.
This issue should be on kde-core-devel or usability, I
think.

>
> > I'm not fond of the idea of having the size grip
in-window, basically
> > because that's normally handled by the window
manager (and because
> > it looks awful :-P).
>
> That's your opinion, but I think the size-grip widget
looks OK and
> certainly no worse than the buttons at the right of
every title-bar. 

Yes, of course. It was meant as sort-of-a-joke... well, I
actually don't 
think the widget fits how windows work normally under X -
the window 
manager is supposed to handle resizing. But aestethics
issues are 
important, and one of the deciding factors for my adoption
of KDE is that I 
managed to make it look and work pretty close to the way I
liked. 

> However this is a discussion about functionality.  It
is not easy (for
> me) to hit the precise spot in the window border for
resizing (using
> Plastik style).  Others have said they find a size grip
easier to hit.
>

There are already a number of options available to make
resizing easier:
- most window decorations let you change the border width,
even plastik.
  (and plastik, at, least hides the border for maximized
windows, so 
  it's not wasting space in the case of maximized windows) 
- There are decorations with a larger resize handle --- 
  like B2 and Modern System 

Of course, you can be of the opinion these decorations look
ugly ;)

Another issue I have is that there are many window manageres
out there -- 
some are quite different in functionality from ordinary
window managers. 
For those, the handle may be useless...

> > Anyway, if the consensus is that we want the size
grip, I think it
> > should not be handled per application; either we
enable it (in
> > KApplication?) everywhere, or we do not.
>
> I think Aaron's idea is for us to
"experiment" with size grips in KDE
> Games, then maybe we go for a universal KDE approach if
the experiment
> works out OK.  It's just one line of code that adds it
to a status bar,
> so not a large investment of development effort.

As long as we do not get a mix of applications with and
without the embedded 
size grip. That would really irk me. As far as I know, Qt
defaults to 
grip-enabled windows, and this setting is usually overridden
by our KDE 
classes --- Is that KApplication? --- so if the purpose is
to experiment 
with this, it would be easier to change a global flag and
see what happens.

>
> > I still hope this could be offered as a
configuration (maybe in the
> > style preferences?) option. It may be useful to
enable it, if "other"
> > desktop environments do so too.
>
> Absolutely.  I certainly believe people who no longer
have the clear
> eyesight and excellent eye-hand co-ordination they had
in their 20s
> (and that would be nearly everybody over 35) should
have some
> such option available.

First, I'm sadly over 35 myself... But I use fat window
borders. Not that my 
eye-hand coordination is so bad, for now. I just like
largish yellow 
borders around my windows  There are
cases when it's not even case of 
coordination, however, like on laptop with touchpads. In
that case, another 
way to resize the window is to use the titlebar menu.

Anyway, many people are not so keen in adding configurable
options, that's 
why I asked. Actually, keeping options to a reasonable
minimum is good.
Maybe this could be made into a widget-style dependent
option.

The default could depend on the platform convention... 

>
> > By the way, the Oxygen window decoration seem to
have large enough
> > resize grips. So I'm not sure this feature is
really needed.
>
> Now there you have the advantage.  Where can we see a
screenshot
> or mockup of this window decoration and judge for
ourselves?

The style is still much like work in progress. It currently
renders las a 
red border around the window, but the borders should have
the look and feel 
of the window splitters in the corresponding theme. 
You can have a look yourself; the decoration is in kdebase
at the moment.

you have to use "kcmshell kwindecoration"
directly, though, because kcontrol 
is not working.

Ciao,
Luciano
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On Thursday 21 June 2007, Luciano Montanaro wrote:
> On giovedì 21 giugno 2007, Ian Wadham wrote:
> > On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 07:40 pm, Luciano Montanaro
wrote:
> > > Hi all. I'm not subscibed to the list, though
I read it occasionally.
> >
> > Hi, Luciano, and welcome.  What list are you
usually on?  Or
> > where in KDE are you from?
>
> Oops! Now I have subscribed... The message bounced
back, and I'm not sure
> there is actually a moderator moderating... I tried
writing some time ago
> too, and I didn't see my message in the  archives.

Sure there is. But usually I need more than 9 minutes to
approve a mail 
(the approval request for your mail is dated at 11:30, your
subscribtion to 
the list at 11:39 on the same day)

CU
Andi
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On giovedì 21 giugno 2007, Andreas Beckermann wrote:
> On Thursday 21 June 2007, Luciano Montanaro wrote:
> > On giovedì 21 giugno 2007, Ian Wadham wrote:
> > > On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 07:40 pm, Luciano
Montanaro wrote:
> > > > Hi all. I'm not subscibed to the list,
though I read it
> > > > occasionally.
> > >
> > > Hi, Luciano, and welcome.  What list are you
usually on?  Or
> > > where in KDE are you from?
> >
> > Oops! Now I have subscribed... The message bounced
back, and I'm not
> > sure there is actually a moderator moderating... I
tried writing some
> > time ago too, and I didn't see my message in the 
archives.
>
> Sure there is. But usually I need more than 9 minutes
to approve a mail
> 
(the approval request for your mail is dated at 11:30, your
> subscribtion to the list at 11:39 on the same day)
>

Never mind. I subscribed because I'm reading the list often
enough anyway, 
and I think last time I tried sending the message it didn't
get posted, as 
far as I remember. But then, I tried using knode to post the
message, on 
the gmane archive... I probably misconfigured something.

Sorry for the lack of trust. It's just that our kde-i18n-it
list moderators 
are actually latent, so I feared this list could be
similarly 
under-manned. ;)

Luciano

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On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 10:21 pm, Luciano Montanaro wrote:
> There are already a number of options available to make
resizing easier:
> <snip>
> First, I'm sadly over 35 myself... But I use fat window
borders. Not that
> my eye-hand coordination is so bad, for now. I just
like largish yellow
> borders around my windows 
<snip>
>
Yellow, huh.  Now that *is* radical ... 

On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 05:40 am, Burkhard Lehner wrote:
> You shouldn't forget resizing by pressing the Alt key
and dragging with the
> right mouse button anywhere within the window. A very
nice feature!
>
Ah yes, I also remember Alt-left-button, to move a window
without having
to move the mouse up to the title-bar, from my old X Windows
days.

Summing up, there are some basic operations an end-user
needs to
do with windows in order to manage viewing space on his/her
desktop.
One of these is resizing.  The defaults in KDE (and MS
Windows) do not
make that one easy or intuitively obvious.  The window
borders tend to
be rather hard to hit.  Ways to make resizing easier in KDE
are:

1. Choose a window style that has size grips.
2. Add a size grip to the status bar.
3. Add a QSizeGrip widget to the central widget, if there is
no status bar.
4. Find the place in Control Center where you can make the
window
    border fatter and easier to hit.
5. Find the place in Control Center where you can change the
color of
    the window border and make it a more conspicuous
target.
6. Click on the icon at the left of the title-bar and follow
the popup menu.
7. Use Alt-right-button anywhere in the window you wish to
resize.
8. Any others I have forgotten.

Items 1, 4 and 5 depend on you knowing that the options
exist and
knowing where to find them (all three are recent discoveries
for me,
after about 6 years of KDE use - Control Center is a real
jumble, imho).
Items 2 and 3 depend on programming something into an
application,
with some loss of generality in the desktop as a whole. 
Items 6 and 7
are in the KDE User Guide, along with the border-dragging
method, but
they are quite a long way into the manual, so not very easy
to find.

The manual itself is not easy to find either.  It is three
levels down
in the SuSE Help Center on my machine and if you left or
right-click
on an empty desktop area (KDE 3.4.2), there is no popup
help.

So how is a new user of KDE supposed to find out stuff like
this?
And if he/she does not find it out, what is the point of
having the
features in the first place?  Surely they are not just for
the benefit of
KDE devotees like us?  These are rhetorical questions, but I
believe
they should lie at the heart of KDE usability concerns. 
Size grips
are unimportant compared to that.

All the best, Ian W.




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