51396 - Improve wording and interface for Composer prefs

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Core :: DOM: Editor, defect, P3)

Description

[Ryan Cassin]

Open composer preferences and move your mouse over the "Maintain table layout 
when inserting or deleting cells" to pull up the tooltip. The wording needs to 
be changed so it reads better.

Comment 1

[Blake Ross]

I have never seen tooltips for checkboxes or radio buttons in a Windows app 
(then again, most apps have a right-click "What's This?" help system).  Matt, 
is this generally acceptable for an app, or would it just be considered an 
annoyance?  (If the former, we need to file a new bug to have tooltips for all 
the pref checkboxes and radio buttons, not just the select few we have now.  If 
the latter, I would tend to agree.)

Comment 2

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

No, checkboxes shouldn't have tooltips (and there are two in this prefs panel 
which do). The only controls in a GUI which should have tooltips, are controls 
where text is not present or is highly abbreviated (e.g. toolbar buttons).

Any controls which have text should be self-explanatory. And this checkbox isn't, 
at the moment, even when I read the tooltip. Same goes for the `Maintain source 
formatting' checkbox. So let's fix them both at once.

Beth or someone, please explain, in as much detail as you like:
1a. What happens when `Maintain table layout when inserting or deleting cells' is
    checked?
1b. What happens when `Maintain table layout when inserting or deleting cells' is
    unchecked?
1c. What proportion of people are going to find the `Maintain table layout when
    inserting or deleting cells' option useful?
2a. What happens when `Maintain source formatting' is checked?
2b. What happens when `Maintain source formatting' is unchecked?
2c. What proportion of people are going to find the ` Maintain source formatting'
    option useful?

Then we'll see if we can come with better ways of presenting the options. This 
might involve changing the wording of the checkboxes; it might involve getting 
rid of the option altogether; or it might involve using a pair of radio buttons 
instead, with an introductory label. However it's done, the tooltips should go.

Comment 3

[rubydoo123]

just to help out -- tooltips will remain, rework will not be done at this point, 
 I'll future this one for later consideration -- however to answer your 
questions:

1a. maintain source formatting -- ever look at the structure of an html file? 
Ever put each element on it's own line in source formatting? Ever try to debug a 
large table with numerous tr, td and th elements? Answer yes to any of those? 
Then how fun would it be to have a very large document all strung in one nice, 
neat little string with no indents -- hence 'retain the SOURCE FORMATTING'

1b. when editing a table -- do you always want to delete the table cell every 
time you select all in the cell? Or are you just wanting to delete the content

1c. anyone who wants to know where in the heck the bloody cell went to.

2a. i would suspect that a check mark means turn it on -- wouldn't you? just to 
make it simple -- that would mean 'yes'

2b.  i would suspect that no check mark means turn it off -- wouldn't you?

2c. anybody who looks at source

the text has been looked at and reviewed

Comment 4

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Beth, don't be so harsh, I think you are suffering from overfamiliarity. :-) It's 
obviously blindingly clear to you what these checkboxes do, but it's not clear to 
me (from which I arrogantly assume that it won't be clear to a lot of other 
people).

For the source code problem: we need radio buttons.
------
When saving documents:
(*) Save the source code in compressed format
( ) Retain the original source formatting
------

For the table layout problem: just as with MS Word, I shouldn't be able to delete 
a cell at all except by explicit command (`Edit' > `Delete' > `Cells ...', or 
context menu > `Delete Cells ...'). If the editor allows me to delete a cell 
merely by deleting all its contents, that's a problem which I think is too severe 
for any rewording of a checkbox to be able to fix.

Comment 5

[rubydoo123]

the intent was not be harsh, just short -- if you interpretted as harsh, my 
apologies. In any event, the tooltip text has been reviwed and rewritten, the 
functionality has been reviewed, discussed and agreed upon, explaining the 
functionality in help will be the winning ticket.

As for deleting the cell and content -- I do that all of the time, other times I 
just want to delete the content, we should allow both.

Comment 6

[rubydoo123]

when the time comes for this, Charley will be the one to own this

Comment 7

[Charles Manske]

Concerning Matthew's 2000-09-07 03:34 comments:
The pref does *not* concern "merely by deleting all its contents". The pref
applies to the situation where cells were explicitly selected by the user, e.g.,
by using Ctrl+Click or via a table menu. So in that case, you can see where a
(probably advanced) user might expect the cell to be deleted since that's what
is selected. But for novice users, we suspect they don't differentiate between
selecting the contents (by dragging mouse) of a cell vs. selecting cells via the
menu, so they might be surprised if entire cell was deleted.
But we certainly should review the wording of the prefs and tooltips for
mozilla0.9

Comment 8

[Charles Manske]

Changed summary to cover both the table layout and "pretty print" issues for the
Composer prefs.

Comment 9

[Charles Manske]

Changed to radio buttons and improved text and tooltips.

Comment 10

[sujay]

verified in 2/6 build.