[haiku-3rdparty-dev] Re: Testing DocumentViewer
- From: Disreali <mdisreali@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku-3rdparty-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2011 09:45:15 -0800 (PST)
Hi,
--- On Sat, 11/12/11, ciprian.nedisan@xxxxxxxxxxxx
<ciprian.nedisan@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Finally I could spend again a little time with programming,
> so I made a new release of the PDF Viewer (now:
> DocumentViewer).
>
> I'm interested to know your opinion about the user
> interface. It's far from being finished, but i'm curious
> to know if you consider the current user interface as
> acceptable, or if you think that it looks/feels too different
> compared to a standard haiku application.
>
Very nice work. it renders my test pdfs better than than anything I've use on
Haiku.
However, since you asked, I do have a couple constructive criticisms regarding
the UI.
1. I don't like that clicking on the app icon launches an "Open" dialog box. It
should just launch the app itself. Let the user open what he wants from the
MENU.
2. There is no MENU!! How can I open another document once the app has
launched. How is the user supposed to do much of anything else without a MENU?
All functions of the app should be available from the menu. You could have
teh menu be able to be hidden with ALT+M if you want, but only having icons to
select functions will be very problematic. There would simply be to many icons
to navigate and they would take up to much space. The lack of a menu makes
navigating the app's functions difficult.
3. There is no obvious way to get rid of the sidebar. Yes I found out that
dragging the border works, but it is not intuitive. There should be an icon or
MENU-item/key-combo that is obvious to the user.
4. I'm really not a fan of the icon ribbon bar. Especially the big icons. They
just get in the way and take up to much space. As does the big red X. That is
totally unneeded. If a user wants to quit/exit the app there are other
methods, ALT+Q or clicking the 'close button'. Overall, I would prefer smaller
icons, maybe 16x16.
As for the current UI, I think there could be some improvement. One would be to
completely remove the big red X. Then move the "fit width" drop down to where
the "X" was, over next to the page numbers. Then move the forward and back
arrows on the other side of the page number box , instead of below it. This
frees up a lot of space for displaying the actual document, which is supposed
to be the purpose of the app. Another would be combine the "home" and
"magnifier" ribbons. That way all the icons a user would need to view a
document are all visible together. No need for the extra click to a separate
icon bar.
I truly hope that my comment help you to make the DocViewer an app that will be
intuitive to more users. It is a good app that has lots of potential.
--
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is it such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?
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