[kde-guidelines] Conventions in the HIG

[Aurélien Gâteau]

On Wednesday 05 June 2013 17:18:54 Thomas Pfeiffer wrote:
> On 05.06.2013 17:05, Aurélien Gâteau wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > Now that we are getting more and more stuff documented in the HIG, I think
> > it makes sense to adopt some standards: the sooner we do this the less we
> > have to fix.
> 
> Good idea!
> 
> > = Terminology =
> > == "widget" vs "control" ==
> > 
> > I expect all Qt developers to be familiar with the word "widget" to refer
> > to what other OSes or toolkits call a "control". I would suggest using
> > "widget" everywhere.
> 
> Does the term "Widget" in the QML + Components world as well? If it
> does, than we can use widget. If it's only common in the QWidget world,
> this may be problematic for people who start with creating QML UIs for
> Desktop applications.

No the QML world does not use the "widget" term, I assume this was done on 
purpose to avoid confusion between widget-based code and QML-based code.

The most generic visual element in QML is called an "Item", which is really, 
well, generic. The visual elements which are supposed to look like native 
applications used to be call "Qt Desktop components", but they are being 
renamed to "Qt Quick Controls" [1].

It's a bit of a mess, really, not sure what to take out of this.

> > == Others ==
> > 
> > Any other terms we should standardize on?
> > 
> > = Screenshots =
> > 
> > Our current screenshots story is a mess. Some are mockups, some are done
> > with Designer using the Oxygen style, yet others are using Designer with
> > the Plastique style.
> > 
> > I personally think the HIG would look more polished with screenshots made
> > using Designer and the Oxygen style. It also will help developers to
> > compare their UI with our references. Furthermore, using Designer makes
> > it easier to adjust screenshots later. I understand Designer can be
> > painful to use, I am happy to help creating any Designer files if need
> > be.
> 
> +1. A consistent look helps a lot here.
> Another reason for storing the ui files used for the screenshots in a
> central repository: If the default style used by KDE changes in the
> future, we can simply make the screenshots again with the new one to
> keep up to date. That would still be quite some work, but it should be
> doable
> 
> > If you think Designer is really not adapted, then let's standardize on
> > another tool, though.
> 
> I've started a discussion about mockup tools for KDE on the usability
> list a few months ago. The outcome was that we should use Pencil if
> there are Oxygen-based stencils available.
> This would make it easier for non-Devs to create mockups, but until
> someone creates those stencils, I think we should stick with Qt
> Designer. I found it a bit tricky to work with the last time, because
> I'm used to being able to freely place anything with the mouse, which is
> not possible in Qt Designer. However, maybe I can learn it or if I find
> it to be too complicated for me, I will just always ask you to do the ui
> files :P

Actually, you can place things with the mouse wherever you want with Designer 
instead of using layouts.

It is just not recommended to do so because it usually is difficult to align 
elements correctly, and your widgets do not properly scale when the window is 
resized. This may not be a problem in our case though.

Aurélien

[1]: https://qt-project.org/wiki/QtDesktopComponents