Re: The HIG and Open a Copy

Ryan Pavlik wrote:
>
> Alan Horkan wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 21 Feb 2005, Robert Staudinger wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 18:34:03 +0100
>>> From: Robert Staudinger <robsta@stereolyzer.net>
>>> To: Alan Horkan <horkana@maths.tcd.ie>
>>> Cc: AbiWord Developer Mailing List <abiword-dev@abisource.com>
>>> Subject: Re: The HIG and Open a Copy
>>>
>>> Am Montag, den 21.02.2005, 17:05 +0000 schrieb Alan Horkan:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Just because something is not in the Gnome Human Interface
>>>> Guidelines does
>>>> not mean it shouldn't be in Abiword. Open a Copy may not be a heavily
>>>> used feature but it being absent from the HIG is not reason enough
>>>> on its
>>>> own to remove it.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I must admit my initial argumentation only referring to the HIG was
>>> probably not very convincing.
>>> I think that "Open a Copy" is not needed because
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> + It's not used very frequently. (Use cases?)
>>>
>>
>>
>> I don't disagree with this, but as the old 80/20 rule suggests most
>> people only use about 20 percent of the features.
>>
>> If there was an easy way for non programmers to reveal this functionality
>> I wouldn't have any qualms about turning it off by default.
>>

I don't think "it's not used very frequently" is a good argument to
remove a function that can't be replicated in the same amount of steps.
Also, I don't think one person can realistically gauge how the thousands
of AbiWord users actually use the program.

Quite frankly, the more I use the new menus, the more I dislike them. I
used to be able to toggle spellchecking on and off with one click, but
have to go through the preferences dialog now (this is a pain for
documents where many of the words are "int," "mv," "cp," etc.). I know
the goal of these changes was simplicity, but I don't think removing
menu functions achieves this. At this point, I /really/ would like to
see the changes reverted until conclusive discussion has ended.

>>> + I'd rather have revisions turned on by default, so the user can manage
>>> her/his versions within one file instead of having multiple files
>>> cluttering the default save location (new users often tend to save
>>> everything at one place).
>>>
>>
>>
>> Are revisions stable enough? I thought there were still problems with
>> it.

Absolutely not. Turning revisions on by default would be a huge mistake.

>>
>>> That said i think the simplification of removing the "Open a Copy" menu
>>> item is in the spirit of the HIG which promotes uncluttered menus.
>>>
>>
>>
>> That is a much better line of reasoning.
>>
>>
>>
>>> If people want it back for win32 or cocoa i'll put it back in.
>>>
>>
>>
>> In my opinion keeping abiword consistent with itself is important and
>> this should be done for all platforms or not at all.

I agree. One of AbiWord's selling points is its cross-platform nature,
which makes me inclined to say that any additional platform imparity is
unwise.
Received on Mon Feb 21 23:33:07 2005