160694 - Page Info should not have a Help button

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 195492

(SeaMonkey :: Page Info, defect)

Description

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

The Page Info window shouldn't have a `Help' button. It's unnecessary, and it's 
confusing people because it makes the window look like a dialog when it's not.

Comment 1

[R.K.Aa.]

for the record: The help button was the fix for bug 140466

Comment 2

[alge]

bugspam:
I hate that 'help' button, looks kind of like a 'close' button so I always hit
it when I want to close the dia^H^H^Hwindow.

Comment 3

[Daniel Brooks [:db48x]]

no, the help button is useful. Other solutions are possible: move the help 
button to the left edge of the dialog (probably looks funny), add a close 
button, both of those, make the word Help on the button larger, red, and 
blinking, or pop up a warning that your about to open the help file, do you 
want to close the dialog instead. Ok, maybe I'm just bored. As far as I can 
tell though, it's either that or just WONTFIX this.

Comment 4

[Alex Bishop]

Generally, I find Help buttons to be rather helpful.

Comment 5

[timeless]

if it was a dialog, we could use the help widget that comes from the os (macos
has a button in the top right corner, and windows places the widget into the
dialog border by the x)

Comment 6

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

>if it was a dialog, we could use the help widget that comes from the os 

not on gtk or xlib...

Comment 7

[timeless]

oh right, the alternative while we're fighting is to add a context menu that
contains a "what's this" item which should behave as what's this items behave.

Do we have a bug for what's this lying around somewhere?

re widgets, the macos widget is top right internal to the frame, so mozilla
would have to paint it itself (as with all other buttons).  wrt placement of a
context help button for unix, .. i haven't used the latest gnome/kde so i don't
know how they handle it. Again, i'd expect this silly creature to be a dialog
and for xbl to be responsible for placing the help button/widget as appropriate
(if unix needs to pick an arbitrary spot, it can, i don't really care, it can
even stick the button where it is now, although i'd probably suggest following
apple's placement)

Comment 8

[Heikki Toivonen (remove -bugzilla when emailing directly)]

Context menu is not good, most people will never discover it.

Comment 9

[Jonas Jørgensen]

We don't have a Help button in Navigator either. We have a Help menu. A menu is
the way to go IMO.

Comment 10

[Baron Schwartz]

The principle that I would like to invoke here is "give people what they expect"
which will someday be known as Baron Schwartz's Principle of Good UI. I tested
this out on my brother and sure enough, he hit the Help button when he tried to
close the window, just like I did.

When there is only one button in something that looks like this, you expect it's
a close button, plain and simple.This should have two buttons; then you will
look before clicking. When there's only one you don't look because you know what
it is.

Comment 11

[piers]

Attachment: Remove Hellp button from page info

Also add F1 shortcut to access help.

Comment 12

[[e-mail]]

Comment on attachment 115627 [details] [diff] [review]
Remove Hellp button from page info

The JS code expects to be able to replace the progressmeter with the spacer,
which will result in an annoying visual effect (and a JS error) if it is not
changed. And IMHO if you do remove the button you should use a proper status
bar in this window.

Comment 13

[piers]

Attachment: Remove Help button from page info v2

Don't hide the progress meter so content doesn't flex, and remove the reference
to the spacer.

Comment 14

[Daniel Brooks [:db48x]]

Try putting the progresss meter in a status bar and see what it looks like.

Comment 15

[piers]

Attachment: Compare status bar to without statusbar

It looks pretty much the same except for the resize widget thingy at the bottom

right corner.

What happens if the window manager adds its own resize widgets? (i think OSX
does
this)

Comment 16

[Daniel Brooks [:db48x]]

that's in a platform specific overlay, so it goes away when not needed.

if it's in the status bar and you hide it, does the status bar stay the same
height? (it should). I think a hidden progress meter looks better than an empty one.

Comment 17

[Daniel Brooks [:db48x]]

oh, and you need to adjust the padding and margins and so on so that the status
bar hits the edge of the window/dialog

Thanks

Comment 18

[piers]

Daniel, what is the best way to adjust padding/margins? does this have to be done
in css in the theme?

Comment 19

[piers]

Attachment: Compare two different styles of statusbar

Hiding the progress bar causes both the height and width of the statusbar to 
change. :(

However, if i use class="progressmeter-statusbar" the progress bar has no
border anyway (but the statusbar does). Have a look at the screenshot and see
what you think. To make it fit flush with the edge of the dialog i removed
class="dialog"	- is this ok, or is there a reason for it?

Comment 20

[piers]

Attachment: Remove Help button from page info v3

Make the statusbar flush with the edge and use class="progressmeter-statusbar"

Comment 21

[Daniel Brooks [:db48x]]

Comment on attachment 115763 [details] [diff] [review]
Remove Help button from page info v3

awesome. Thanks.

Comment 22

[[e-mail]]

Comment on attachment 115763 [details] [diff] [review]
Remove Help button from page info v3

>-  align="stretch" class="dialog"
>+  align="stretch"
Nit: align="stretch" is the default, so this line can die.

Comment 23

[jag (Peter Annema)]

F1 is not a cross platform way of accessing help (it's not on Mac, anyway). I
think we have platform specific overlays somewhere to handle that, though I
would love to see someone implement the back-end code needed for DOM_VK_HELP.

Other than that, I'm not convinced the help button should go. Why not add a
close button on Windows (and Unix?), and keep things as they are on Mac?

Comment 24

[Daniel Brooks [:db48x]]

because it isn't needed, and because it takes up more space than I'd prefer

Comment 25

[Daniel Brooks [:db48x]]

and anyway, what is the standard keystroke on the mac?

Comment 26

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Mac keyboards have a `Help' key where PC keyboards have the `PrtScrn' key. Some 
Mac apps also respond to Command+questionmark.

Comment 27

[Daniel Brooks [:db48x]]

does Mozilla use those keys anywhere else?

Comment 28

[piers]

Any movement possible on this bug, or should it be wontfix'ed  re comment 23?

Comment 29

[Daniel Brooks [:db48x]]

no, it shouldn't. Jag just needs to answer my questions. I'll email him, I guess.

Comment 30

[Daniel Wang]

I think a better solution is putting an OK button (see my comment in bug 181764)

Comment 31

[timeless]

daniel wang: would you please stop deCCing people who aren't you? some other
people probably watch them.

Comment 32

[R.J. Keller]

I think that the real solution to this bug is to add a OK button and keep the
Help button. I agree with Daniel, why don't we have an OK button in the Page
Info dialog? It's illogical not to have one.

If you want a patch, I'm sure I can come up with one.

> daniel wang: would you please stop deCCing people who aren't you? some other
> people probably watch them.

rudman and oeschger are an exception :). I'd like them to be removed and nobody
should really be watching them (except maybe rudman for web docs, but that has
nothing to do with this bug).

Comment 33

[Jack Tanner]

Not to flame, but an OK button in this dialog is _COMPLETELY_ wrong. An OK
button, at least on Windows, means "I've made changes in this dialog, now close
it." It's impossible to make changes in this dialog, so there are no changes to
OK. There's already a Close button (the X in the upper right-hand corner), so
there's no need for a second Close button.

The Help button at least has some unique, conceivably beneficial functionality,
so it's redeemed in that way, but it's placement is awful, because it's where
one expects the Close button to be.

Comment 34

[R.J. Keller]

(In reply to comment #33)
> Not to flame, but an OK button in this dialog is _COMPLETELY_ wrong. An OK
> button, at least on Windows, means "I've made changes in this dialog, now close
> it." It's impossible to make changes in this dialog, so there are no changes to
> OK.

That is not really correct. A message dialog has an OK button, but nothing will
be changed, it is merely a warning. I think you're thinking of the Apply button
when it comes to changes.

If we were to have an OK button, it would be like the IE Properties dialog (with
all the great enhancements, of course :)).

Isn't there a separate bug for this issue somewhere?

Comment 35

[Jack Tanner]

>That is not really correct. A message dialog has an OK button, but nothing will
>be changed, it is merely a warning. I think you're thinking of the Apply button
>when it comes to changes.

Nope. A message dialog DOES indicate a change, e.g., "Save your changes?
OK/Cancel". (As an aside, there are idiotic alerts that only give you an OK
button, and no other. These are not even dialogs, in the linguistic sense of the
word -- the user is permitted no meaningful response! -"You've chosen to format
your hard drive. You'll now lose all your data. We suggest a doing little 
dance. OK.")

The IE Properties has an OK button, but that OK button means "close the dialog,
and save my changes". (Incidentally, Apply means "apply these changes without
closing the dialog".) It's impossible to make changes in the Page Info dialog,
so there are no changes to OK. 

There's no reason to keep looking for an excuse to put an OK button in the Page
Info dialog. If you still disagree, please read
http://mpt.phrasewise.com/2002/09/04#a332.

Comment 36

[Daniel Wang]

What we need is a Close option for <dialog buttons> (see bug 232403)

We are not looking for an execuse to add an OK button. We need the Help button
because we don't yet have a contextual Help widget. We need another button
because people are hitting Help by accident when they want to close the dialog.
This is how we do it for Image Manager and Cookie Manager--a Close button.

Comment 37

[R.J. Keller]

> Nope. A message dialog DOES indicate a change, e.g., "Save your changes?
> OK/Cancel". (As an aside, there are idiotic alerts that only give you an OK
> button, and no other. These are not even dialogs, in the linguistic sense of the
> word -- the user is permitted no meaningful response! -"You've chosen to format
> your hard drive. You'll now lose all your data. We suggest a doing little 
> dance. OK.")

No, that's not right. In the windows properties dialog, there are many that you
can't change anything (IE is a good example), yet there is an OK button to
dismiss the dialog.

This window is providing information, and you can have an OK button to dismiss
the information.

Maybe like Daniel said, a Close button would be more appropriate? My offer of a
patch still remains if everyone agrees.

Comment 38

[Jack Tanner]

This is getting silly. This is the last time I'm going to speak on the subject.

(In reply to comment #37)
> No, that's not right. In the windows properties dialog, there are many that you
> can't change anything (IE is a good example), yet there is an OK button to
> dismiss the dialog.

I don't know what version of IE you're using, but in IE 6 SP1, Tools, Internet
Options produces a dialog that a) has an OK button, but b) also has a TONN of
options that could be changed. Are you referring to some other dialog?

> Maybe like Daniel said, a Close button would be more appropriate? 

A Close button in addition to the Help button would be consistent with the
manager dialogs in the Mozilla suite, as Daniel suggests. By all means, it would
be better than any other button in addition to Help, and also better than Help
alone.

My comment that all these buttons are unnecessary still stands. Notably,
Firebird 0.7's Page Info dialog, although not ideal, has NO buttons. (Presumably
Firebird developers plan to implement Help some other way.)

Comment 39

[R.J. Keller]

db48x: read below.

> I don't know what version of IE you're using, but in IE 6 SP1, Tools, Internet
> Options produces a dialog that a) has an OK button, but b) also has a TONN of
> options that could be changed. Are you referring to some other dialog?

Read the email I sent you personally.

> A Close button in addition to the Help button would be consistent with the
> manager dialogs in the Mozilla suite, as Daniel suggests. By all means, it would
> be better than any other button in addition to Help, and also better than Help

db48x: are you OK with this? should I make a patch?

> My comment that all these buttons are unnecessary still stands. Notably,
> Firebird 0.7's Page Info dialog, although not ideal, has NO buttons. (Presumably
> Firebird developers plan to implement Help some other way.)

Not that I know of. Since the Help Viewer was only recently checked into
Firebird, I'm sure Help buttons will be added.

Comment 40

[Peter Weilbacher]

The help button on the Page Info pages/tabs has been removed now by the patch
from bug 195492 so I am duping this one to that bug. (Help is now thought to be
accessed via F1.) I guess the pending sr should now be removed too...

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 195492 ***