comboboxes - sorted lists in KDE4 - idea

[Andreas Pakulat]

On 22.02.07 10:21:32, Ferdinand Gassauer wrote:
> On Thursday 22 February 2007 00:40:07 Andreas Pakulat wrote:
> > On 22.02.07 00:22:52, Ferdinand Gassauer wrote:
> > > may I suggest that comboboxes return sorted list by default (and unsorted
> > > list only by setting a parameter)
> >
> > First: this is actually the wrong list to post requests, kde-core-devel
> > is better suited.
> Sorry no write permission on that list.

As you can see, that's not a problem, it just takes longer until your
mail arrives...

> > Then I don't understand, a combobox doesn't have any method to return a
> > list of items, so what exactly are you proposing? Also you should add
> > some reasoning for the request, especially as in if this would happen in
> > KDE4, the KComboBox would behave very differently from QComboBox, which is
> > not something KDE should do - IMHO.
> Unfortunaltely a lot of application return the items in a combobox/drop down 
> list unsorted and/or ungrouped

Then those apps should be fixed.

> While it make sense for some lists not to be sorted because the list is short 
> and / or some other reasoning is valid - (default item should be on the first 
> place, To/CC/BCC in addresses New Mail) for all lists with a big number of 
> items - alphabetical sorting is a must IMHO.

Uhm, all lists with a big number of items should be listboxes and not
comboboxes I think (not sure what usability people's decision is here,
though).

> Good Axamples: 
> * Font Selector

Thats a listbox.

> * KSnapshot
> ** Capture mode

This one has 4 entries, how is that a problem?

> ** Help - this is a good example of how to segment a drop down list, but in 
> the segmenst the items should be (are?) sorted.

You know that for Help you could only switch the order of the two about
items, which is IMHO pointless. Also thats not a combobox anymore, its a
popup menu, which is quite different.

I don't know any of the other apps you mentioned.

> hope that enlightens my suggestion.

Yeah, I guessed you mean that. However there's still the problem of
being quite different from QComboBox. Also on a plain combobox a
grouping is rather hard to achieve, all you can have is really a general
order of some sort. However this can be done by either using the
insertItem() function properly, or using a model and a sorting-model to
provide the entries for the combobox.

Andreas

-- 
There is a fly on your nose.