Comments on: Gedit follow-up

By: Philip Ganchev

Philip Ganchev — Tue, 15 May 2007 17:36:46 +0000

“* The search bar at the bottom doesn’t work well with the output window (bottom pane) open
…
* The last reason (even if not very important) is that for text,I value vertical space more than horizontal”

Then the output pane should be on the side, because it uses up much more space than a search panel.

I agree that an Emacs-style replace dialog is better. It wastes less space, and is not confusing.

By: blog.stevenbrown.ca » Blog Archive » hello blog

blog.stevenbrown.ca » Blog Archive » hello blog — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 11:36:50 +0000

[...] 217;ve recently tried out some programs that I simply must mention: Leafpad Until the new Gedit is released, I recommend making this your default basic text file prog [...]

By: Phil

Phil — Fri, 17 Jun 2005 16:21:08 +0000

I love being able to reorder tabs; glad to see that made it in.

Here are some replies to some problems:

* Fitting replace in the bar doesn’t work well
What about having a separate command for replace? CTRL+F opens a find search bar, CTRL+else opens search & replace. Replace shows one text input at a time. It doesn’t ask for the replace term until you’ve already entered the search term. See emacs for an intuitive, simple implementation of this. (Wow, emacs and simple in the same sentence?! Unprecedented!)

* Ditto for the varions search options (match case, etc)
How many search options are there? Here’s an idea for match case: if the input contains capitalisation, the user probably cares about caps, so be case-sensitive. If it’s all lowercase, search case-insensitive. This does not allow for lower-case specific searches, but it’s a great way to unclutter the UI, and it seems to be in line with Havoc’s famous Metacity simplicity plea.

Also please reconsider putting “go to line…” in the find UI. I’m not sure that’s where it belongs.

* And at the top it doesn’t work well with tabs, which I think is the reason why firefox has it at the bottom. In general I’m not very fond of search bars at the bottom… is the last place where my eyes goes
If it were a different colour, it would be much more noticeable. I agree that having it appear in an unobtrusive way carries with it a danger of not noticing it. However, making it a different colour would probably solve this.

* The last reason (even if not very important) is that for text,I value vertical space more than horizontal
Different strokes for different folks I guess. (Do you have a widescreen display?) Above all, it’s not my project, and I value the fact that you guys are putting a lot of hard work into it. I’d love it if you give my suggestions some consideration, but it’s your baby.

Happy Hacking!

By: SchAmane

SchAmane — Fri, 17 Jun 2005 10:02:32 +0000

Thanks for answer about FileManager plugin first.
Second i will say, this mockup looks cool,but is not usable. If you open file from local space it happends too fast to inform user about loading.
So if you donwload file, or accees it from slow gnome-vfs place it can be usefull to show user that gedit just wait for source, but not this way you will make. More correct way would be making animation “load” icon for TAB you just load file in. Like its in Epiphany and Firefox. There are animated small spiner while loading combined with showing progressbar in status space.
This is more native and understandble for users way to show “please wait”.
And this is simplier to implement, because every application do this. So i think this would be better choice.

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 22:11:32 +0000

First off, congratulations and thank you for some seriously cool work.

Like many others, I fear the sidebar is a bad choice, and maybe this is an area where real usability testing is needed. I’ve never seen a “normal user” make good use of the sidebar in Netscape / Mozilla / Firefox, for example, in my opinion because it’s just an uncomfortable interface - the shifting makes people nervous. But in the end, I’m sure this will all shake out, and it’s not too horrible to have different Gnome and Gnome-related apps take slightly different approaches on this, because in the end we’ll be more likely to converge on the best UI.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 20:43:50 +0000

Does gedit have a plugin for emacs style processing of tabs?
That is - tab causes the current line to be shifted forward according to the syntax.

By: Daniel Llano

Daniel Llano — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 20:26:34 +0000

Cooooooool!!!!
Is there any formal proposal to get this into the HID, making all other GNOME programs follow this GUI convention?

By: Yury Puzis

Yury Puzis — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 18:01:40 +0000

The sidepane on the right is not weird at all. It is even implemented in new version of Totem playlist this way. Left and right issue is really a matter of getting used to, while the text reflow is an irritation that’s not going to go anywhere just by itself. I suggest to put the pane on the right by default, and add a preference to shift it left. And do it the other way around for right to left languages.

By: Paolo Maggi

Paolo Maggi — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 17:42:39 +0000

Calum: I do not agree. We have a progress bar for each tab during long operations (e.g. loading/saving of remote files). We also need a way to cancel operations (see the Canel button near the progress bar).

By: Alex Roberts

Alex Roberts — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 17:40:48 +0000

Wow, it’s so great to see what you guys are doing with my baby! I look forward to seeing all of this in action. =)