KPropertiesDialog. Useful graph ?

[Gary Greene]

On Sunday 27 April 2008 12:46:00 am Stefan Monov wrote:
> Hi,
> First of all, a chart of sorts is badly needed in that dialog, so good
> idea!
>
> However... immediately your screenie struck me as ugly and unclear. Have a
> look at XP's dialog:
> http://www.genie-soft.com/images/support/drive_properties.jpg
> Despite lack of AA and lack of gradients, this looks *tons* better. Why?
> This took me a while to decide, as design is always in the details ;)
> It's because:
> - it looks symmetric, small, cute and manageable. like something you can
> put in your pocket.
> - the colors don't clash, while red + green is pretty much the bane of good
> looks :)
> - no gradients at least looks normal-ish, while the gradients slapped
> together in your screenie hurt my eyes, really.

This is where my opinion differs, while I agree that the colors are a tad too 
bright in the mockup that Rafael did, the flat look in XP looks ugly and 
smells of UIs from the 1990s. If the colours were more subdued and 
complimentary, it'd look right.

> So, my suggestions:
> - decrease the perspective. make the graph more narrow, and centered.
> - get rid of the legend, and instead separate "used" and "free" info into 2
> rows (like XP). put the colors next to their corresponding rows.
> - for a start, get rid of all gradients. ask an artist (pinheiro, ruphy) to
> make a mockup of it. This may include subdued oxygenish colors, complex
> (but sparingly used) gradients, and maybe slight translucency.
> - fix the blotchy AA ;)
>
> Vista uses a kind of progressbar for this. But that's directly in Explorer,
> wouldn't work in a dialog context.

But it _WOULD_ work in a display of the mounted volume (like in the media:/ 
kioslave).

> Btw doesn't KOffice/Flake have a chart thing as well? There were
> discussions about the colors used there as well.
>
> Thanks for your work,
> Stefan

-- 
Gary L. Greene, Jr.
Sent from: peorth.tolharadys.net
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