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User:Gandalf/About:Config: Difference between revisions
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*** '' I don't know if I can put a textbox/checkbox inside the tree cell in XUL, but that may solve it [gandalf]'' | *** '' I don't know if I can put a textbox/checkbox inside the tree cell in XUL, but that may solve it [gandalf]'' | ||
** Overall I guess I would say that working from the current UI, but changing to a treeview, allowing options to be more easily edited, and adding descriptions of all the items (visible at top/bottom for whatever item is selected) would go a long way toward addressing the shortcomings of about:config. Perhaps a few buttons (for adding/deleting an option, or editing one? maybe this is a better replacement for doubleclick than the textfield idea) at top would be good too. | ** Overall I guess I would say that working from the current UI, but changing to a treeview, allowing options to be more easily edited, and adding descriptions of all the items (visible at top/bottom for whatever item is selected) would go a long way toward addressing the shortcomings of about:config. Perhaps a few buttons (for adding/deleting an option, or editing one? maybe this is a better replacement for doubleclick than the textfield idea) at top would be good too. | ||
==== Gerv's Thoughts ==== | |||
As I understand it, about:config gets the list of prefs programmatically | |||
from Mozilla, rather than having them in a master list of its own | |||
somewhere. If that's true, how are you going to know which pref goes in | |||
which category? | |||
In fact, categorisation can make things less findable, because you have | |||
to look in each category instead of quick-filtering a master list, as | |||
now. (This is why Dave Allen's excellent productivity book "Getting | |||
Things Done", recommends having a single A-Z filing system rather than | |||
subdividing it by category.) | |||
[I also think that having both Search and Filter is confusing and that | |||
"General" and "Advanced" are terrible names for tabs.] | |||
===== Task-based analysis ===== | |||
The mockup doesn't actually address the actual usability issues in the | |||
current about:config. Looking at it from a task-based perspective, the | |||
two tasks users will do are "find a pref" and "change a visible pref". | |||
"Find a pref" is almost always done when they know the pref they are | |||
looking for - from a web page, security announcement or whatever. So the | |||
Filter: box on the current about:config should be labelled, or have a | |||
grey hint inside it saying "Enter all or part of a preference name". | |||
"Change a pref" is what happens once they've done "find a pref". The | |||
right way to do this would be to have the right widget inside the tree - | |||
checkboxes, text fields etc. But I'm not sure if our tree implementation | |||
permits that. If not, an extra column with an "Edit" button, which does | |||
the same thing double-clicking does now, would probably do the trick. | |||
So I think that we could improve the usability of the current about:config more by doing less - i.e. what I suggest above. | |||
== Target == | == Target == | ||