Re: Re: [Everybuddy-Dev] Alpha 11

On M=C3=ABr , 2004-03-17 at 16:15, Chris Boyle wrote:
> > Anyway, Yahoo seems to work, so that is a good thing. And, I don't
> > like the ebqt UI at all. It is way too big for my resolution, and
> > doesn't seem to be user-friendly in the least. These two things have
>=20
> Could you be a bit more specific please? I don't recall anyone else
> ever complaining about the level of user-friendliness, but there's
> always room for improvement.

Upon launch, I am presented with a tabbed window, with the last tab that
exists, selected, asking me to launch the eb-lite server, which is bad
as is. It gives me the option of manually typing in the command line, or
specifying other "manual" methods, such that it will connect to another
host. In the command line entry exists the default, that has options
that the user should have no idea or care about. It also forces you to
have the -f %1 %d option, otherwise, it won't start when you press
Launch. In the "manual" frame, there are 8 spin buttons, that are set to
different values, and I have no idea what they are for. I don't expect
any normal users would either.

Once I "Launch" the eb-lite daemon, I get automatically moved to the
middle tab, "Accounts". In which, I am presented with a list of
accounts. In the list are a drop-down menu, and two toggle buttons.
The only one of them that does anything when clicked, is the status
drop-down. Clicking in the area where the toggle for "on-line" is,
does nothing. I would expect it to connect that account. I don't even
know what the second toggle button in the light-bulb column is for, but
I would expect it to toggle whatever state it is supposed to represent,
if I were to click on it, which it does not.

The way that the per-account options are presented, is also very
annoying. They are inside yet another notebook that is inside the main
notebook, which we are being automatically navigated through for some
reason. And the visible tab for the options changes, depending on which
item in the list is selected. Some of the options are also inconsistent,
and should probably be available for all services, where they are not.
For instance, the "Exclude from Sign on All" option doesn't exist for
the yahoo service.

Once I do click "Sign On", all of my accounts are connected, and then I
am automatically switched to the "Buddies" tab, and presented with an
"error" dialog telling me that I have N new messages in my inbox. After
closing that dialog, I can then actually peruse the buddy list, which is
somewhat confusing, since contacts are always expandable. The option
menu for what to display in the list only consists of "online" and
"all". Both of which, should probably begin with a capital letter. And,
"online" should probably be "Available" or "On-line" or something. The
other option menu gives me "(custom)", "accounts", and "contacts". Not
know what these are supposed to do, seems rather confusing. Especially,
since "(custom)" and "contacts" seem to do the exact same thing, and
"accounts" only seems to expand all of the nodes.

The UI also defaults to just docking a notebook to the left of the buddy
list window. This is very confusing, especially not being able to resize
the buddy list vs. the chat notebook. The conversations window, also
does not seem to remember that I don't want to see the time-stamp, or
the option to change the contact and account in the dialog itself.

These are just annoying things I've found just trying to use ebqt to
test that Yahoo! works, and I can do what I want with eb-lite. I am
pretty sure that I could find a lot more if I wanted to make a full-
pass with the reviewing, and get some user testing on it.

If I could get qt to draw with the gtk+ stuff, it would probably look
much better on my machine. Or, if I could just get qt to not have the
ugly default look of a cross-breed between windows and motif, and to
use the same font as the rest of my desktop, it would probably be better
to look at as well. These are more qt issues than ebqt issues, though,
so I won't whine about them too much. :)

Ah well, back to writing that gtk2 UI.

-- dobey