[4777] in testers
Re: 9.0.6: Menu and launching-related issues
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Christopher D. Beland)
Wed Jun 13 17:23:04 2001
Message-Id: <200106132122.RAA46991@whack-a-mole.mit.edu>
To: Abby Fox <ajfox@MIT.EDU>
cc: testers@MIT.EDU
In-reply-to: The events that comprise the history of the universe.
Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 17:22:58 -0400
From: "Christopher D. Beland" <beland@MIT.EDU>
> > * gyruss, despite being a Solaris box claiming to run 9.0.6
> > (according to the version file), still isn't getting the updated
> > menus. This is apparently because of a faulty symlink at:
> > /afs/dev.mit.edu/system/sun4x_58/srvd-9.0/usr/athena/share/gnome/athena/m
> en
> >us
>
> Greg found the actual problem and submitted a patch.
Oh, cool. Ya, I was on krak...
> > - Selecting an (i) item from the menu when I've already got Netscape
> > open hijacks my Netscape window and puts its own content there. 8(
>
> We discussed at release-team whether to use gnome-moz-remote or
> htmlview, and decided on the latter. Dash has always used htmlview,
> historical consensus I guess being that it's better not to pollute the
> user's desktop with a new window for each entry they go to view.
Well, it works just as well to use either, for now. (In fact,
htmlview covers more cases - like no X, for example, than
gnome-moz-remote.)
If the decision with regard to whether or not htmlview should open a
new window has already been firmly made, then I'll crawl back into my
little corner here and merely grumble every time I need to start an
(i) item. But from a usability perspective, it makes more sense in my
mind to open a new window. Here's why.
This only applies in the case where a user is already viewing a web
page which they want to keep open, and starts an (i) item (including
previously started (i) items). In the current setup, this is the most
efficient procedure for the user to use to be able to view both web
pages at the same time that I could think of (and the one I use when
this happens to me):
1. Start a new Netscape window.
2. Delete the URL from the new window's location bar.
3. Cut-and-paste the URL from the old window to the new one, or type
it in manually.
4. Hit back in the old window.
(This assumes the user is clueful enough to do this...they might very
well go back and hit the button to bring up the old page they were
viewing, which would then clobber the new page. They would then
hopefully figure out what was going on and open a second window
somehow.)
If the "start new window" flag were added to htmlview, the user would
do nothing to be able to view both windows at once. To remove any
extraneous windows, they only have to hit the close button, which is a
lot simpler than the four step procedure above, though you could argue
that it's probably going to happen a lot more often. I happen to
think this is the best balance; others may still disagree.
-B.
