[Kde-pim] KMail merged folder properties - Bug 115611

[Ingo Klöcker]

On Wednesday 04 February 2009, Thomas McGuire wrote:
> Hi Jonathan,
>
> On Tuesday 03 February 2009 18:15:37 Jonathan Marten wrote:
> > The bug refers to merging all of the various dialogues relating to
> > folder properties - "Mailing List Management", "Expire" and
> > "Shortcut" - into tabs of a single folder "Properties" dialogue. 
> > Maybe a contentious issue, but it's been something that has been
> > annoying me for some time - and not just myself, the bug has 3
> > duplicates and 115 votes.
> >
> > I know that the original tabbed dialogue was split up after a
> > usability study.  However, that was four years ago... since then,
> > more options have been added to the menus (both menu bar and folder
> > popup), including some very obscure ones which certainly don't need
> > to be available with just a click.  The "Properties" dialogue has
> > also been changed back from a simple dialogue to a tabbed one,
> > having introduced the "Templates" tab.  Unfortunately both the
> > original study on openusability.org, and the gmane discussion
> > referred to in the bug, seem to be now unavailable.
> >
> > In the absence of specifics from those, I'd be inclined to follow
> > the general usability principle that context menus should be as
> > brief as possible and should contain only frequently-used options. 
> > So the options that are now in the tabbed dialogue should be
> > removed from the context menu.  If that confuses some people who
> > now expect them to be there, then they can be reenabled by a hidden
> > option.  All of the options can be left in the menu bar "Folder"
> > menu by default, anyone who would like to remove them from there
> > too can edit their rc file. Those options from either menu will
> > lead to the appropriate page of the combined "Properties" dialogue.
> >
> > Prototype screen shots are at:
> >
> >    http://www.keelhaul.me.uk/kde/popupmenu.png
> >    http://www.keelhaul.me.uk/kde/props1.png
> >    http://www.keelhaul.me.uk/kde/props2.png
> >    http://www.keelhaul.me.uk/kde/props3.png
> >    http://www.keelhaul.me.uk/kde/props4.png
> >    http://www.keelhaul.me.uk/kde/props5.png
> >
> > The final "Maintenance" tab is new; it contains some information on
> > the folder/index files, and the compaction options.  The
> > potentially dangerous "Rebuild Index" and "Rebuild IMAP Cache"
> > options are only here, not in the popup menu - a casual user
> > shouldn't really be using these options.
> >
> > Any comments?  If it is worth going ahead, then I'll post the code
> > changes on reviewboard.
>
> What I definitely agree with is moving things like "Rebuild Index"
> out of the context menu. See also Aaron's mail from November, he has
> some points about the order of the entries (which changed with the
> SoC merge), it would be nice if you can include that.
>
> In general, I also tend to agree with the rework of the folder
> properties dialog.
> But I would really like the input of people who were around when the
> usability changes were made (Till?), maybe they know the reason for
> some of the changes.

Please read the corresponding thread:
http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kdepim-usability/2004-November/thread.html

Unfortunately, openusability.org doesn't seem to respond so I cannot 
download their report atm. :-(

Note that I'm against reverting the changes we made to the folder 
properties dialog 4 years ago unless you can present a usability study 
that shows that putting everything back into the folder properties 
dialog improves the usability.


Regards,
Ingo
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