Label Alignment in KDE4

[Celeste Lyn Paul]

The biggest issue is getting the input and combo labels aligned because this 
effects a lot of the look and feel.  If it really is that big of a deal to 
have flipped checkbox labels (i.e. requires hacks, lots of thinking), I guess 
we can make it optional and fix them as we find usability issues.  Checkbox 
label alignment and position can effect usability as I showed in some of my 
examples but I'd rather see some of the form alignment fixed than none.

As for groupboxes vs hlines, I'm not sure I understand what you mean.  The 
benefit of group boxes is not just the separation (grouping) they provide, 
but also the label.  A lot of information would be lost if there was just a 
horizontal line.

On Friday 18 July 2008 20:02:34 Luciano Montanaro wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I experimented a bit with converting some of the kcm modules with what
> I understood was the proposed HIG for a while, however, I stumbled on
> some of the issues mentioned above, plus the alignment within groupbox
> problems.
>
> Not being able to determine if the HIG was still in flux, I gave up
> for the time being.
>
> Before proceeding, it would be great to understand if the checkbox
> alignment is a strict requirement, or if it's optional. Swapping label
> and checkbox could be a boring job, since that implies adding a label
> and often adapting the text, which has ripercussion on our
> translators...
>
> Plus, I'm not sure all the cases can be converted easily. Only one
> dialog (even if it was a complex one) was shown to test the design --
> I feel trying to convert other dialogs could reveal more difficulties.
>
> If it's not a strict requirement, it may be best to skip that.
>
> The other (bigger) issue was the alignment requirement of the widget
> across group boxes.
>
> That is hard/hackish to do now, but an easy alternative would be (as I
> remember was proposed earlier) to drop groupboxes and use horizontal
> separators (hlines?) only.
>
> In this way, a gridlayout could be used to align the widget as
> otherwise the guide requires.
> Alternatively, groupboxes could simply have each their own alignment,
> but I'd prefer the non-groupbox version of the hig, then.



-- 
Celeste Lyn Paul
celeste at kde.org
KDE Usability Project
usability.kde.org