Style guide decision needed (was: [Kopete-devel] Bug#40938: behaviour change request)

[Antonio Larrosa Jiménez]

El Monday 29 April 2002 09:51, Thomas Zander escribió:
> On Mon, Apr 29, 2002 at 01:57:38AM +0200, Rob Kaper wrote:
> > On Monday 29 April 2002 01:21, Antonio Larrosa Jim?nez wrote:
> > > ... _nobody_ wrote multiple lines messages (and I even asked them to
> > > do so, but they simply don't know how ...
> >
> > No, abusing a text edit to make Enter send would make it hard to find
> > out how to use newlines. ;-)
>
> Yes, that is saying the feature is bad since in a different
> implementation the users did not understand it.  The implementation

I've been a KDE developer/user since 1997, never used windows since then
and I still find the behaviour illogical.

> should be fixed but the feature is a good one.

Yes, sure.

> > > Just check the "use multiple line messages" box and there you are.
> >
> > Yes, this would be the best solution, switching between QLineEdit and
> > QTextEdit based on this setting.
>

That's what I've always been saying !!!! Finally someone understands me !

> No, since that changes the behaviour of your send button, and is even

But is a change the user explicitly asks for.

> more confusing to the user.

It's not more confusing because
1) It's easier by default (by defaults uses a QLineEdit and so, Enter 
submits)
2) When the user asks for a behaviour change, you can show a messagebox 
explaining him what will happen, so he'll absolutely know what happens 
(instead of relying on a random ktip, which may happear after a month of 
using the program)

>  Besides I have not seen good arguments that
> a multi-line edit is bad.
>

Enter doesn't submit isn't enough?
Just go to any average user and ask him:
"When you're talking with another person using your computer and you finish 
writing a line, what key would you press to send your message to the other 
person?". I'm 100% sure he'll tell you "Enter", and if that's what the 
users expect, that's what we should give them by default.

> Most people either use the mouse or pres alt-s to sent if they are
> unable to find ctrl-enter..

Please set kmail to use Fixed font widths (in the View menu)

Now, select a road to go from city A to city B 

A ----------------------- B
  \____  ___      __  __/
       \/   \____/  \/
       /\
      (__)

Of course, you selected the straight one. If there wasn't any sign telling 
you about that road, you would have choosen the other one, and sure, you 
could still get to city B, but wouldn't it be better if there were a 
straight road between them?
What I'm trying to say is that even if there are other ways to do it, we 
should choose the easiest, least annoying, more "expected" way to do 
things.

Btw, talking today about this with another "average user" (another 
mathematics student, this time MSN and IRC user) he told me another reason 
why he thinks single lines are more useful : When he's talking with 
another person he doesn't want the other person to be waiting until he 
finishes writing 3 lines, it's better that he send them asap, so that the 
other person doesn't get desperate waiting for him to say something, so 
submit is the most used action, so submit must get the easiest key binding 
possible, and that's Enter.

Greetings,

--
Antonio Larrosa Jimenez
KDE Core developer  - larrosa at kde.org
http://devel-home.kde.org/~larrosa/
KDE - The development framework of the future, today.