(Yet another) new logout dialog

Manu Cornet lmanul at ubuntu.com
Sun Mar 26 18:58:24 BST 2006



Hi !

Since the UI freeze has been postponed a few weeks, I have made a try at
enhancing the current logout dialog.

The main idea is that since there are so many options in there, users
might get lost (eg, what's the difference between Sleep and
Hibernate ?). I had first implemented tooltips, but the faded background
doesn't redraw correctly behind them, and I can't see an easy fix for
that.

Therefore, I just made a space below the buttons to display a help label
as the mouse goes over the various buttons. Here's how it looks :

	http://www.manucornet.net/ubuntu/dev/logout.png
	http://www.manucornet.net/ubuntu/dev/sleep.png

(these are actual screenshots, not mockups: I already wrote the code).

That's the general idea (of course, it needs refining for spacing,
wording, and maybe add an additional separator, etc.). 

I still have a problem with the label's size. My small text for
Hibernate doesn't fit in one line, and displaying it resizes the
dialog :

	http://www.manucornet.net/ubuntu/dev/hibernate.png

And then, when another one-lined text is displayed again, I get the same
problem with the background not redrawing correctly :

	http://www.manucornet.net/ubuntu/dev/restart_bad.png

I guess it would be best to keep the dialog's size constant. But if I
allow too big a space by default (even when no text is displayed), the
bottom of the dialog really looks weird and empty when the pointer is
away from all buttons. And I can't assume all help texts will fit in one
line (or two, for that matter) in all languages.

What do you guys think is the best solution for this ?

And how do you like this "status label" idea ?

Cheers,
Manu




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