dialogs and label alignment

[Celeste Lyn Paul]

On Sunday 18 December 2005 19:20, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:

beleive it or not, i was just thinking about this issue the other day.

the decision we need to make is actually this:  do we left-align or 
right-align labels in a form window.

if we left-align labels, aaron's example would actually look something (there 
are exceptions of course) like this...

(example 1)
long label 1: [control]
label2: [ c o n t r o l  ]

... where the input box would be stretched to fill the gap.  its stretched 
only when the gap is extremely large, for example in the kontact 
configuration when you edit an account in the general account info tab, the 
space in the first input boxes isnt very large and arnt difficult to trace 
with your eye.

i think theres a reference to this in _gui bloopers_, but i have also see it 
in other form specs (cant think of references on the top of my head)

the other example is of course right aligned...

(example 2)
long label 1: [control]
         label2: [control]

i dont really think there are too many differences in either style, its really 
a matter of *picking one*.

personally i think example 1 is easier to read, but would be more difficult 
for developers to design.  conversly example 2 is cleaner and easier to 
design, but may not be as easy to scan through.

perhaps we should all take a few minutes to look through some of the forms to 
see if there is a general style to them and which would be most appropriate.  
personally i would vote for example 2 (right-align) because it would be 
easier for the developers to follow than the left-align which takes more 
intuitive designing.

> hi all...
>
> minor issue and topic to bring up, but one that could have a large impact
> on things.... label alignment. i see it is marked as TODO in the wiki[1]
> but i thought i'd bring it up because i'm already seeing divergence in the
> kde4 apps that are being built.
>
> currently our apps do:
>
> Long Label 1: [   control   ]
> Label 2:         [   control   ]
>
> another option is:
>
> Long Label 1: [   control   ]
>         Label 2: [   control   ]
>
> is there any data on which is better?
>
> personally i lean towards the latter (and i believe macos does as well).
> the downside is that we'd have to go through and do a LOT of changes as
> every single label would need to be altered in this manner. where .ui files
> exist this could be automated. where they don't, it'll likely be manual
> labour.
>
> so this is not a light decision to be made, i think.
>
> [1]
> http://test.openusability.org/wiki_ou/index.php/Visual_Design:Text_Layout

-- 
Celeste Lyn Paul
KDE Usability
usability.kde.org
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