Hi,
jvoisin:
> Hello,
> I am the developer of the MAT[1], and despite several rewrites, it seems
> that I still didn't managed to come with an usable GUI.
>
> If anyone has some ideas, I'll be happy to discuss/implement them.
If you want to try MAT, and you are a Tails user, you can do so in
Tails. On Debian GNU/Linux, you can simply install it through APT.
I was wondering how much a developer is tied to use the GTK icons and
window architecture? How much liberty does one have here?
I need to say that I tend to use MAT from the command line. Simply
because the GUI seems too complicated.
Users should be able to understand what they are doing exactly.
In the current state of things, my remarks would be these:
- the icons are not very clear to me, especially the looking glass. The
step of verifying if metadata exists should be automatic imho; i would
never need to click on this looking glass to get the "clean" or "dirty"
state.
- However, i might want to see the metadata, and there is currently no
button for this. This could be an eye.
- ideally, one would also have text next to the icons.
- when i click on something, i want feedback. For example, when i click
on the "clean" button, and i have nothing selected, I'd like some
feedback saying that i first need to select a/several file/s. Or when i
click on that button to clean something, i'd like a feedback saying
"metadata cleared" or even which metadata has been cleared.
- for adding files: would be cool to be able to doubleclick in the file
list area and then get the "browse your computer" dialog". and/or to
have the possibility to right click and then get the options:
- add files
- clean files
- remove selected files
- the "close window" button/icon does not seem necessary to me as there
is already a way to close the window provided by the window manager.
- main menu : why not couple "Edit" and "Proceed"?
- file list: the filelist looks also complicated. Why not put first
"file", then "path"? And make the file column bold, so one can
distinguish it without reading it?
- thumbnails: well, that might not be necessary, but it helps seeing
what i am working on, so it could be nice to have a very small thumbnail
or at least a file type icon.
There has also been a report back from a Tails Usability testing session
on MAT:
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/7445
But probably a design expert might try to recreate MAT's interface from
the bottom up and not rely on the existing schemes which my remarks are
aimed at. So please do not refrain from proposing something much better,
people :))
Cheers!
u.
