[haiku-development] Re: AboutSystem window credits (was: Testing the poll)

On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 2:51 PM, Stephan Assmus <superstippi@xxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> "Jorge Mare" <kokitomare@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> * The list of developers has 100+ names. I don't think that's
>> anybody's idea of concise.
>
> I agree with your other points, but I simply can't understand the problem 
> with the list being long. It's a scroll view, not a scrolling movie credit 
> you have to wait for if you want to behave well in a cinema. :-) I just don't 
> see the benefit of the list being short. That's the one place in Haiku were 
> the credits are shown. Why would you want to thin the list? If your name 
> belongs in the credits, you just want it in there and be proud. If your name 
> does not belong in the credits, why would you want to look at the list but 
> only when it's short? I agree it may be useful to make top contributors stand 
> out, just to be able to know who was most influencial - or who is most likely 
> to blame for an annoying bug... :-)

My observations about the length of the list(s) where in the context
of the limited space that the AboutSystem window provides. In that
context, the space and the means to present such a long list seem very
inadequate. I am not even sure the AboutSystem window is the best
place for credits, at least not in the present format, where it uses
half the width of a relatively narrow window; sure, you can scroll,
but I think there are better ways to show a 100+ names list IMHO
(maybe this is not unusual in software and I am only thinking out of
the box).

To me, if you are going to present such a long list of names (which,
btw, you can only expect to grow over time), an html document in a
browser window seems a much better choice: you would have more viewing
space, you can search the document, you can event print it. Plus you
make it relatively easy to do all kinds of formatting and/or
categorization of the information (say, by year, release, etc.), as
well as linking the page(s) to other forms of contributions as well. I
think the credits page as something constantly in progress,
particularly for an open source project with a very dynamic pool of
resources, so the idea of a web page that can be changed almost in
real time is also enticing.

Anyway, as I said, I did not mean to cause a flame war nor do I want
to disrupt the balance/focus of this development list, so please
forgive me for the waves that I may have made. If the people here are
happy with how and where the credits are shown, then I guess that's
what's going to be.

Cheers,

Jorge

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