[87] in Zephyr_Comments
[dschmidt@ATHENA.MIT.EDU: What I'd like zbrowser to be like]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mark W. Eichin)
Wed Aug 31 15:50:21 1988
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 88 15:50:01 EDT
From: Mark W. Eichin <eichin@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
To: zephyr-comments@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
From: <dschmidt@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 88 02:23:55 EDT
To: eichin@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Subject: What I'd like zbrowser to be like
Zbrowser is a good idea, but currently it is very unwieldy to use,
especially when its height is small (I usually have it just high
enough to display one message). Below, I'll describe my vision of the
optimal interface for zbrowser. I thought you would be interested to
see what a user's reactions are.
Everything in a viewport, as it is currently.
Just one command button at the top - quit.
A list of all the current zephyrgrams, as it is currently.
Each listing is a command widget with the following actions bound to it:
Left: unmap
Center: map
Right: delete
The main reason I'd prefer this interface is that everything can be
done in one click. Right now, to delete a message, I have to click
(on the message), drag (the scrollbar up to the top), and click again
(on "delete"). This is a real bitch, especially since deleting a
zephyrgram "manually" only takes one click. The current interface is
annoying enough to deter me from using zbrowser, which is a
potentially useful application (it prevents the user from accidentally
clicking on incoming zephyrgrams).
I might make these changes myself sometime soon. It should be a
pretty simple thing to do, since all I have to do is change the code
involving the toolkit, with which I am (unfortunately) already
familliar.
What are your feelings about the interface? Is there anyone who uses
zbrowser reguarly, and what do they think about it?
-- Dan
