Improving the usability of Amarok icons

[Celeste Lyn Paul]

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 4:32 AM, Valorie Zimmerman
<valorie.zimmerman at gmail.com> wrote:
> I saw this conversation in the #amarok channel, and jumped on it:
>
> [00:12] <rindolf> How do I get rid of the Wikipedia view in the Context panel?
> [00:13] <markey> erm
> [00:13] <markey> click the "Wrench" icon at the bottom
> [00:13] <markey> then you can add/remove applets
> [00:13] <markey> discoverability issue?
> [00:13] <markey> I thought it was obvious
> [00:14] <rindolf> markey: no, it was not.
> [00:14] <rindolf> I didn't understand what the wrench is doing.
> [00:14] <rindolf> It should be somewhere on the wikipedia party.
> [00:14] <rindolf> part-y I mean.
> [00:16] <markey> hm
> [00:16] <markey> ok, we might need to consider this then
> [00:16] <-- GarthPS has left this server (Remote closed the connection).
> [00:16] <markey> could be a usability issue
> [00:16] <rindolf> markey: thanks. :-)
>
> Markey suggested I send this to the devel list.
>
> My suggestion is to add tooltips to all these little symbols/ icons,
> as I have no idea what they are, and don't know how to find out. This
> isn't just an Amarok problem, but KDE4 in general, Plasma widget
> windows in particular. If I need to advocate more on-the-spot help to
> some KDE devs, point me there.
>
> But I would love to see such help in Amarok now. I never know when I
> click on something new, like the little diamonds and Xs in each pane
> top-right, what they will do, and how to get that pane back, for
> instance. Yes, I figured it out, but why no tooltip?

Hmm.. everything should have tooltips. They are on a timeout so it
doesn't interfere with normal usage and can only help.

In this case of Amarok, I'm noticing that the widget configure button
looks like the configure button for whatever button is right next to
it (in my case wikipedia). This might be causing some confusion
because now Wikipedia looks like it has two configure buttons. The
configure button also acts as a modal toggle to edit the widgets,
which might be confusing too. Not sure what to do about this though,
needs a creative UI brainstorming session. It's a hard problem :)

>
> I tend not to change the applet pane because I'm not really clear on
> what changes I'll make, or how to back up out of it.
>
> Valorie <==== in process of becoming part of the Handbook writing team
>
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-- 
Celeste Lyn Paul
KDE Usability Project
KDE e.V. Board of Directors
www.kde.org