Dropdown- vs. Combo-Buttons

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

Hi all,
I just noticed a little usability bug in the toolbar (in 2.2.0, I don't know 
if it's still present in 2.2.1): The "Save Current Playlist" icon and the 
"Playlist Layouts" icon have the same look but react differently to clicks.

The save icon initiates a save directly on click, thus making it a combo 
button (since it can be used as a normal button or as a dropdown when holding 
the mousebutton down). The Playlist Layouts, on the other hand, only displays 
the dropdown on click, thus making it a dropdown button.

This is inconsistent since users who have used the layout button would expect 
the save button to display the dropdown on click as well but the playlist is 
saved instead.

The problem is that currently KDE4 doesn't distinguish between dropdown- and 
combobuttons, which is a general problem.

So I see three options here:
1. Try to come up with a visual distinction between dropdown and combobutton 
and try to push Amarok's solution to KDE in general
2. Ask the KDE usability team to come up with a distinction to use for all KDE 
apps
3. Try to come up with a default action for the layout button (e.g. configure 
layouts) to make it a combobutton as well.

Regards,
Thomas