On Tuesday 13 December 2005 14:04, Khalid B wrote:

On 12/13/05, Uwe Hermann <uwe@hermann-uwe.de> wrote:

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On Tue, Dec 13, 2005 at 03:13:28PM +0100, Piotr Krukowiecki wrote:

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Linus opinion (and mine btw ;)):

http://lists.osdl.org/pipermail/desktop_architects/2005-December/000390.html http://lists.osdl.org/pipermail/desktop_architects/2005-December/000395.html

Wow. Linus used the F word. But he's right on target. My favorite lines: "When user interfaces means that something CANNOT BE DONE, it's not about 'usable design' any more. At that point, it's about UNusable design." My UI philosophy is "make the advanced stuff options, and put it on its own tab (or in Drupal's NEW, EXTREMELY SPIFFY collapsible fieldsets {grin}), and make sure the defaults make sense for the most common situations." But don't handicap advanced users just to cater to novices. My wife is a very good illustration of the fallacy of the "nontechnical equals stupid" theory of UI design. She is a librarian, not a computer geek. Very smart lady, has a Masters' degree, studied abroad, very well-read...and absolutely no interest whatsoever in learning the innards of programming. But she uses Drupal, administers Drupal, and loves Drupal ... and that includes the "advanced" features. She uses -- and loves -- Linux, but only because the marketplace took away her beloved OS/2. I wonder how the "nontech equals dumb" crowd would categorize her. Off my soapbox now. Thanks for sharing, Dries. Good concepts to keep in mind. Scott -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scott Courtney Drupal user name: "syscrusher" http://drupal.org/user/9184 scott at 4th dot com Drupal projects: http://drupal.org/project/user/9184 Sandbox: http://cvs.drupal.org/viewcvs/drupal/contributions/sandbox/syscrusher

On Tuesday 13 December 2005 17:26, Uwe Hermann wrote:

s/Dries/Piotr/ ?

Oops....sorry. That's what I get for replying to a reply. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scott Courtney Drupal user name: "syscrusher" http://drupal.org/user/9184 scott at 4th dot com Drupal projects: http://drupal.org/project/user/9184 Sandbox: http://cvs.drupal.org/viewcvs/drupal/contributions/sandbox/syscrusher

The "Advanced tab" debate was had a few months ago on this list and other places. :-) The basic argument against was that (1) "Advanced" has no standard meaning (does it mean "cool stuff" or "make a wrong turn and your computer catches on fire"? Varies program to program) and (2) A catch-all "advanced tab" is bad usability, because it means the developer couldn't figure out what a particular feature was so just punted. It's better to think through how to properly present a feature than to simply punt. The list archives and issue archives have more. I'm pretty sure everything that could be said was said on both sides. :-) On Tuesday 13 December 2005 01:35 pm, Walt Daniels wrote:

For many things there are options and advanced options. Windows has sometimes done a good job on dialog boxes of distinguishing these, e.g. the network setup where if you check DHCP you don't have to fool with the gateways and DNS addresses (unless you want to) and you aren't confused by their presence when it doesn't concern you as a simple user.

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-----Original Message----- From: development-bounces@drupal.org [mailto:development-bounces@drupal.org] On Behalf Of Uwe Hermann Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2005 1:47 PM To: development@drupal.org Subject: Re: [development] About options... :)

Hi,

On Tue, Dec 13, 2005 at 03:13:28PM +0100, Piotr Krukowiecki wrote:

...

Linus opinion (and mine btw ;)):

http://lists.osdl.org/pipermail/desktop_architects/2005-December/00039

...

0.html

http://lists.osdl.org/pipermail/desktop_architects/2005-December/00039

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5.html

Full ACK. The same is _sometimes_ true for Drupal. That's why I always vote for "make it an option" instead of "remove it" or "don't implement it".

Uwe. -- Uwe Hermann <uwe@hermann-uwe.de> http://www.hermann-uwe.de | http://www.crazy-hacks.org http://www.it-services-uh.de | http://www.phpmeat.org http://www.unmaintained-free-software.org | http://www.holsham-traders.de

-- Larry Garfield AIM: LOLG42 larry@garfieldtech.com ICQ: 6817012 "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it." -- Thomas Jefferson