[Kstars-devel] KStars usability

[Jasem Mutlaq]

> Excellent!  I think one of our big strengths is our beautiful, intuitive
> interface, and I really want to maximize this however we can.  So, please
> thank her for the valuable input :)
>

Done :-)

> Hmm...these toggle buttons are supposed to look "pressed" when they are on
> already.  Maybe it's your widget style?  It's definitely less obvious with
> some styles.  I don't think we should grey out inactive buttons because
> that implies that they are not pressable.  We could perhaps darken the
> icons when off...

Well, I really never know they were "pressed" until your email. I'm using 
default SuSE+Kermaik and you can hardly tell that they're pressed. Pablo 
suggested we decrease the icon size.. how about the other way around, 
increase the border size?

> Yeah, that's an idea.  But everything under Focus deals with recentering
> the view, which is why Find Object is there.  I think instead of moving it
> to View, we should rename the Focus menu, but I can't think of a better
> name for it (Pointing? Center on? Look toward?  these are all worse than
> Focus, IMO)

I agree, Focus is the best alternative. This issue is minor though. I think 
the word "Focus" took most of my time when translating, I redid it so many 
times, so I know what Pablo is talking about :-)
In Arabic, "Focus" is very strict to lenses, so I eneded up translating it as 
"Centering".

> > 4. She used the "Change Location" button in "What's up Tonight" tool.
> > When she exited  the tool, she wondered why the location didn't change in
> > KStars main window. I'm not sure about this one; for one, maybe a user
> > wants to check "rise & set" times for a specific location without
> > changing the universal location in KStars, what do you think?
>
> That's what I assumed.  Perhaps we can have a popup window that asks if the
> new location should be applied globally (or a less-intrusive checkbox?)

A checkbox is nicer, something like "Save location gloablly". 

> Maybe also tooltips on the menu items themselves?  Is that possible?
> Help buttons linked directly to the appropriate Handbook chapter is a great
> idea.  I know it's possible; KMail's Configure Filters tool has such a
> button.

I'm not sure about tooltips for menu items. I'll look into adding a "help" 
button to each tool where possible that links it directly to the 
corresponding entry in the handbook.

Cheers,
Jasem