[Mldonkey-users] GUI cleanups, continued

[Ivo]

As promised, here follows a list of things I deem wrong or not perfect in the
GUI. This pertains to mldonkey_gui, not mldonkey_gui2. Is _gui2 still under
development/maintained, by the way?

A lot of this stuff basically comes from the fact that the GUI hasn't been
perfected yet, or at least I think so. It may also be partly so that the GUI
will break in places based on the GTK theme, screen resolution/window size,
and that sort of thing. Still, it should scale well onto a wide userbase,
rather than just a few installations where it has been tested. I suppose there
are ways to make it look good on different configurations (some apps seem to
pull it off just nicely).

Sorry if I sound harsh, but that's the way I appreciate people criticizing me,
and it's the most effective way to point out the flaws as I perceive them. We
all appreciate the work being done on mldonkey and this is how I want to repay
the development team and mldonkey users.

Here we go.

- After the GUI has just been started up, we're in the Servers tab. Alright.
  What I see here is a bunch of icons crammed next to eachother. The icons are
  not aligned correctly, which is cause by the longer text under some icons
  getting wrapped. This should not happen. It's also cluttered. Too much icons
  with too much text, but I can still manage it. However, some items don't
  have their own icon yet, which may add to the confusion. It's also
  repetitive and basically unimaginative. I get the feeling it's cheap when I
  look at it. So, I suppose some extra icons will have to be made some day.
  Make that a complete new set of icons; they're not all that fantastic.

- Just a small thing and perhaps just an opinion. The IP/Port input fields
  just below the icons could use a little space. Lots of space is good in an
  UI; it makes it more clear. Too much information in one place is overkill.

- On to the downloads tab. Same thing here: the text input fields are just too
  close together, as well as the prompt versus the fields. It's like putting a
  colon like so:it's just a rude invasion of personal space. After a
  punctuation mark, you're supposed to leave plenty of space and too many
  people seem not to bother with it.

- The same problem with the icons as with the Servers tab shows its head here.
  The icons should be aligned perfectly with eachother. I also fail to see a
  certain form of consistency in the icon design. They're basically just a
  bunch of pictures thrown together. Some are pretty nice, but it doesn't
  breathe, "this is a clear, user-friendly, consistent user interface!" Some
  icons just seem somewhat out of place. This observation applies to the whole
  of the GUI.

- I'm not sure what widgets there are for resizing panels, or whatever they're
  called again in GTK, but I personally dislike the little box thingies which
  you have to drag with left mouse button pushed. I prefer draggable borders.

- I think the GUI should remember some of its settings. It already remembers
  window size and sets it to the same as the previous session. I'd like it to
  remember the width of my columns (let's call it "table headers" in HTML
  terminology) as well. I find myself having to drag the Name column in the
  downloads view, for example, to see the entire filename.  Either it's too
  small by default (default widths could be a little saner, to be honest) or it
  should just remember the size when I exit.

- I haven't used the Friends tab ever, really, but a couple things do puzzle
  me. For one, I see double. :) Two trashcans, two hands with "Download"
  beneath them. I also have no idea what the left Download panel is for. It's
  not very clear.

- Queries tab. Boy, this sure is confusing. All sorts of weird letters and
  rectangular white spaces. :) For one, I don't understand the &'s at the top
  of each section. They don't make much sense to me and should be removed.
  The 'keywords:' prompt should start with a capital K. There should be more
  space between each section (it'd certainly fit and would make things much
  clear). The input fields should be aligned below eachother, rather than
  immediately after the prompt (like,
  <td>Keywords:</td><td><input type=text></td> sort of thing). I again see
  some repetitiveness in icons. That's the third time I find that hand icon.
  :) Perhaps instead of showing the blank options by default, we should show
  sane defaults, or maybe even a <Make a Selection> type of thing. In the case
  of media, an 'all' option would be more clear. For fields that only contain
  small (in string length) choices, the input field could be made much
  smaller, like in the case of Min Bitrate and Format.

- Another hand :) and the column width thing again, of course. But I should
  not repeat myself. The running and made queries at the left get overlooked
  soon. This tab is reasonably simple and uncluttered, but it could be a
  little better still. Perhaps the 'x results' status line could stand out a
  little more, as could the tabs for the different queries.

- Rooms tab: another tab I never use. Some sizes and locations seem badly
  chosen here, resulting in some stuff only getting half shown, like column
  headers. Otherwise, I don't know what to say about this one.

- The screens/tabs from File> Settings also have the problem with unaligned
  input fields. They should go neatly beneath eachother, rather than directly
  after the prompt. This applies to everywhere in the GUI, even the Colors
  tab. Some buttons only get half shown here and there (Remove button in
  Columns Titles, which by the way should be called "Column Titles" to be
  correct English). I think the table padding (or spacing? I always confuse
  those) should be bigger. The prompts/ends of the fields are to close to the
  window border.

- There is no consistency throughout the entire GUI where prompt/field
  convention is concerned. At some places, you'll find a
  "Search Timeout [     ]" (and why is there a dot after the value that's in
  it?? Like '120.' Lose the dot) and at another you'll see a
  keywords: [      ] prompt. Note the colon (:).

Hmmm, okay, I'll leave it with this for the moment. There's more, but this is
a very good start. You might not agree with it all, but I think you should
with most. It's the details that count.

In the hope that this is useful,
Ivo