123171 - one-click printing: pulldown preferences, not a dialog each time

Status: NEW

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, enhancement)

Description

[stig hackvan]

printing with mozilla is tedious because of the dialog box.  if there's a
pulldown menu on the print icon (modern theme) then why isn't it used for doing
page_setup things that normally appear in the dialog box?

also, on unix, it would be a great boon to users if common helper apps were used
in recipe mode by the printing process...

PRINT PREVIEW: 'gv -'
PRINT 2 UP :   'mpage -2 - | lpr'
PREVIEW 2 UP:  'mpage -2 - | gv -seascape -'
PRINT 4 UP:    'mpage -4 - | lpr'
PREVIEW 4 UP:  'mpage -4 - | gv -'

and so on...  as with programming languages, gui's differ in what they make
easy...all of this stuff can be typed into the dialog but going from mouse to
keyboard and back is a pain.  the desirable thing is to change presets with the
mouse and have one-click printing via the toolbar.

TIP:  the PRINT TOOLTIP should reflect the current settings "print", "print
landscape", "print 2up", "print preview", etcetera...

Comment 1

[Andrew Hagen]

I think having to click "Ok," or just hitting enter when you want to print is a
minor burden. 

Comment 2

[stig hackvan]

minor burdens add up.  ALL ui is the streamlining of things that don't need to
be complex.  printing is one such thing.  If I want to do page setup every once
in a while, i'd rather explicitly choose to do so via the menu or a right-click
on the print icon.  




-- rationale --

Of course, if your job is programming, you can get your job done with any
"complete" computer language, theoretically speaking.  But we know from
experience that computer languages differ not so much in what they make
POSSIBLE, but in what they make EASY.

    - Programming Perl (p ix), Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, Randal Schwartz

Comment 3

[Andrew Hagen]

Maybe component should be switched to user interface design.

Confirming enhancement request. 

Do you want a command line option for printing? (I think there is one.) Do you
want a button that automatically prints? Would that button be separate from the
current print button?

Comment 4

[stig hackvan]

command-line printing would be quite useful for print filters (if it's not done
already), but the main thrust of the bug was that i want printing in mozilla to
be at least as efficient as in internet explorer.

As with back/forward button/pulldowns, print should have a pulldown next to the
print icon.  on that pulldown would be a few printing options...  perhaps like so:

    x  portrait
       landscape
       -------
       whole page
    x  two up
       four up
       -------
       page setup

also, i've filed another bug about headers (Bug 123151) that fits into the
"print as well or better than IE" category...

-- stig

Comment 5

[rods (gone)]

seem like a UI issue

Comment 6

[stig hackvan]

anything suggested for the pulldown can/could be a simple shortcut to the page 
setup dialog.

a seemingly simple mod to the current UI would be a history pulldown on the
print-to-command text field so that, for instance, alternation between "lpr" and
"mpage -2 | lpr" wouldn't require a mouse-keyboard-mouse shift of attention.

one possibility for slowly immersing people into unixy ways of appreciating
command lines would be to auto-generate such command-lines with radio buttons...
 pages per sheet (1, 2, 4) orientation (landscape, portrait) preview or print...

so then the page setup dialog would have, under select printer, file, command,
and autopilot...where autopilot contains the radio groups mentioned above and
they just pre-set the greyed-out command line for either unix muggles or lazy
wizards.

i suppose if i could just poke my head into the monitor and suck the information
into my head then i wouldn't have to print and this interface speed bump
wouldn't jolt me whan i hit it...

-- stig

Comment 7

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

Filter "spam" on "guifeatures-nobody-20080610".