Log out, shutdown and reboot confirmation alerts don't follow GNOME HIG

Bug #436887 reported by Luca Ferretti
26
This bug affects 4 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Session Menu
Won't Fix
Low
Matthew Paul Thomas
indicator-session (Ubuntu)
Triaged
Low
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: indicator-session

The confirmation alerts for Log Out, Shutdown and Reboot actions should:
 * remove the title
 * add a primary (<b><big></big></b>) text

See http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/windows-alert.html

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Fri Sep 25 23:00:34 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: indicator-session 0.1.5-0ubuntu1
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=it_IT.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-10.35-generic
SourcePackage: indicator-session
Tags: ubuntu-unr
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-10-generic i686

Revision history for this message
Luca Ferretti (elle.uca) wrote :
Ted Gould (ted)
Changed in indicator-session:
status: New → Triaged
importance: Undecided → Low
assignee: nobody → Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)
David Barth (dbarth)
Changed in indicator-session (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
status: New → Triaged
Revision history for this message
Luca Ferretti (elle.uca) wrote :

Any hope to fix this for lucid? The change is really trivial...

Revision history for this message
Luca Ferretti (elle.uca) wrote :

OK, I've patch. It's totally untested (I haven't tried neither compire, nor run) but should be good.

Addressed issues
  * primary/secondary text in message dialog
  * no title for message dialog
  * mnemonics for button labels
  * use GTK stock for cancel instead custom label (without mnemonics)

I hope it's fine.

Omer Akram (om26er)
tags: added: patch
Revision history for this message
Francesco Marella (francesco-marella) wrote :

Patch tested and working on top of rev 91.

Revision history for this message
Luca Ferretti (elle.uca) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Luca Ferretti (elle.uca) wrote :

Also tested by ikt: http://ikt.id.au/?p=105
(thank you so much)

Revision history for this message
Milo Casagrande (milo) wrote :

If this patch will be pushed it is necessary also to notify the l10n mailing list, since the translatable strings will change, and we should be in UI freeze.

Is it possible to have an estimate on when this bug will be fixed? (or if it will be fixed at all)
That would be really appreciated.

Thanks.

Revision history for this message
Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) wrote :

Thank you for this patch, Luca. However, the HIG is not quite accurate on this issue. When it says "Alert windows have no titles", it should rather say "Alert windows that have parent windows should not have titles". For alerts without parents, such as these ones, giving them no title would cause them to show up as "[untitled window]" or similar in window switchers, which would be unhelpful. We minimize the problem of "unnecessarily duplicat[ing] the alert's primary text" by making the title as short as practical: "Log Out", "Restart", and "Shut Down".

The access keys for the "Log Out", "Restart", and "Shut Down" buttons are inappropriate because those buttons are triggered with the Enter key; adding an extra key would cause dither. The access keys for the menu items are good additions, though.

Revision history for this message
Luca Ferretti (elle.uca) wrote :

Matthew, those specific dialogs are using "skip-pager-hint" and "skip-taskbar-hint" properties for GtkWindow, so they will never appear in taskbar and/or in Alt+Tab switcher as "[untitled window]".

About the access keys, HIG says to apply them to _any_ button; removing from default button seem to me more a missing feature than an enhancement. Please also consider that:
 1) that's true, you can press Enter key, but if you move focus away from "log out" button (for instance), pressing Enter key you'll activate the Cancel button. In short, Enter key acts on current button, but it isn't a shortcut for a specific button
 2) from GNOME HIG "Provide more than one method to perform keyboard tasks where possible. Users may find some keys and key combinations easier to use than others."[1]

[1] http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/input-keyboard.html.en

Revision history for this message
Luca Ferretti (elle.uca) wrote :

Forgot to mention: "Alerts do not appear in the system window list." :) With or without parents

Revision history for this message
Nigel Babu (nigelbabu) wrote :

Please forward the patch upstream too. Thanks for the patch.

tags: added: patch-needswork
removed: patch
Revision history for this message
Luca Ferretti (elle.uca) wrote :

Nigel, the patch is against the Ubuntu "custom" UI, GNOME upstream provides different dialogs for logout/shutdown.

Moreover, I don't understand the reason of needswork... :|

Revision history for this message
Nigel Babu (nigelbabu) wrote :

Ok, so this can go in maverick opens.

tags: added: patch
removed: patch-needswork
Revision history for this message
Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) wrote :

Luca, the alerts should not use "skip-pager-hint" and "skip-taskbar-hint". If you could remove those, that would be great.

It seems the HIG needs some corrections here. For example, "Provide more than one method to perform keyboard tasks where possible" should be an example of something developers shouldn't do, not something they should do. I'll try to make a patch for the HIG over the weekend. Thanks for your work.

Revision history for this message
Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) wrote :

Just to clarify, the reason the patch is needswork is that the only things it does I think are bad ideas. It removes titles from alerts that should have them, it adds redundant keys for buttons that are already triggered by Escape and Enter.

There's a valid bug here, that the alerts and the HIG's guidelines for alerts don't agree. I think this is a bug in the HIG, not the alerts, and I'll work to adjust the HIG accordingly. A useful part of that process will be demonstrating that the new proposed behavior works. For example, "the Cancel buttons in Ubuntu's logout and shutdown alerts respond only to the Escape key, not any other key, and no-one is confused". If that was fixed in the HIG and in GTK's stock Cancel button, then these alerts could return to using GTK's stock Cancel button.

For the moment, though, I think removing "skip-pager-hint" and "skip-taskbar-hint" from the alerts is the only code change we want here. Thanks for pointing it out.

Revision history for this message
David Stansby (dstansby-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

Putting patch-needswork patch back - see previous comment for why.

tags: added: patch-needswork
Omer Akram (om26er)
Changed in indicator-session (Ubuntu):
importance: Wishlist → Low
Revision history for this message
Ted Gould (ted) wrote :

Marking as "Won't Fix" as the patch isn't in shape to be committed at this time. If there is additional work I'm happy to reopen the bug.

Changed in indicator-session:
status: Triaged → Won't Fix
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