PSPP-BUG: [bug #24908] usability review / make the GUI more HIG-compliant

[jeff]

Follow-up Comment #5, bug #24908 (project pspp):

Hello again, I spent some time thinking on the most glaringly annoying
dialogs I am familliar with in PSPP, and made some mockups of what they could
look look like ideally.

These would
- conform to the HIG
- be much more coherent/easy to grasp
- not be a 100% clone of SPSS, but SPSS is certainly not an example of good
UI design from what I've seen

They are mockups intended to gauge your reaction, so I know what is
considered "radical change" or not. Most of my changes can be achieved without
breaking existing code I presume (mostly just moving widgets around with
cut-and-pasting), however some of my ideas would require changes in the way
PSPPire "thinks".

For example, the var_labs_dialog. This little fellow had me thinking for a
while on how to actually make it more efficient to use (the current SPSS
workflow of that dialog is crap, really) and easier to understand at a very
quick glance.

What I came up with is an "editable" listview. To have an idea what I'm
talking about, you might want to try out applications such as Cowbell or
Sound-juicer, which use that as a UI interaction mechanism.

The idea is this: instead of having a bunch of controls that eat space and
are really not that efficient, we provide "direct" manipulation of data. For
example, when the user clicks the "Add" button, a new row appears in the
listview, with the editable cell in the "Value" column focused, and the user
types some value. When the value is entered, the user can then specify a label
(by moving with the keyboard, or clicking in the appropriate cell in the
"Label" column).

When the user wants to modify something? Well, he can just click the relevant
cell and change it!

When the user wants to delete a row, focus some cell and then click the
Remove button.



What do you think? I can think of stuff like that all over the place if you
want, but that all depends if you are ready for that :)
And then, in the end, you will be able to claim on the website "HIG-compliant
user interface, better thought out and easier to use than SPSS! Also makes
coffee!"

(file #17075)
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Additional Item Attachment:

File name: HIG mockup 1.tar               Size:60 KB


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