Subject: Re: cursor overkill on top ruler?
From: Martin Sevior (msevior@mccubbin.ph.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Fri Nov 16 2001 - 22:32:27 CST
On Fri, 16 Nov 2001, Paul Rohr wrote:
> One more UI nitpick before I relurk...
>
> Am I the only one who feels like we've gone too far with context-sensitive
> cursor changes on the top ruler? For example, all of the following seem
> invasive or downright confusing to me:
This is debatable :-)
>
> - the huge swirly cursor on the tab toggle widget
Maybe but I used abiword for about 1.5 years before I realized clicking
here actually did something. Changing the cursor indicates clicking on
this will to something. I gueass a tooltip would be more useful.
> - the left-right cursor only makes sense for moving margins
Once again I didn't realize that I could drag tab markers for a long
time. Also changing the cursor tells you when you've actually on top of
the tab marker to drag.
> - changing that cursor to a hand while dragging controls is even worse
>
I also like this coz it gives visual feedback of what is ctually
happening. On unix it is like pushing a tab with a finger. I like it.
> If I had more time, I'd love to back out most of those cursor contexts and
> *only* use them for the following case:
>
> - change the cursor to indicate that margins can be moved
> - ensure that the cursor *never* changes state during a drag
I disagree for the reasons outlined. If you can implement XP tooltips I'd
consider replacing with those.
>
> This is fairly close to the way the left ruler works now.
>
> Moreover, now that we have cursor feedback here, we could improve the direct
> manipulation UI a bit more by getting rid of the extra Abi-specific ruler
> widget for margin changes, and just go with the standard UI of making that
> thin light-gray bar draggable instead.
>
I think I agree here.
> Paul,
> GUI grinch
>
Martin
(Word Processing Newbie who likes visual feedback.)
> PS: There are also glitches with ruler-related status text changes not
> getting cleared in some cases. More testing needed there as well.
>
Can you file specific bugs in bugzilla?
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