[indiana-discuss] 2008.11 rc1b Package Manager question/confusion

[Jenya Gestrin]

Frank Ludolph wrote:
> Josh Simons wrote:
>> On Nov 13, 2008, at 6:51 PM, Michal Pryc wrote:
>>
>>   
>>> Michal Pryc wrote:
>>>     
>>>> Josh Simons wrote:
>>>>       
>>>>> Why is the Add button on the Manage Repositories pane is greyed out,
>>>>> implying I cannot add a new package source? Is this a permissions
>>>>> issue or something else?
>>>>>         
>>>> There two possibilities:
>>>>
>>>> - You didn't selected (check box in the list) any package that can be
>>>> installed/updated.
>>>>
>>>> - You are running packagemanager without sufficient permissions (run
>>>> with gksu or pfexec on opensolaris) the Package Manager icon is  
>>>> starting
>>>> application correctly.
>>>>       
>>> Hi Josh,
>>> Reply to myself.
>>> The question was about Manage Repositories not Add/Update, so the  
>>> possibilities are as follows:
>>>
>>> - You already have the same name for the repository
>>>
>>> - You didn't specify correct URL address
>>>
>>> - Your name for the repository contains incorrect values (spaces for  
>>> example)
>>>
>>> best
>>> Michal Pryc
>>>     
>>
>> Michal,
>>
>> My issue is one of usability from a UI design perspective. Since the Add
>> button was greyed out, I assumed the companion fields were not active.
>>
>> It is counterintuitive to me that filling in the fields would then  
>> cause the
>> Add button to un-grey. (And only if I specified a correctly formatted  
>> response.)
>>
>> I asked a professional UI expert outside of Sun if this type of UI  
>> behavior
>> was appropriate and she agreed that it would be confusing to users.
>>   
> Not enabling an add/submit button until the 'form' is completed is a 
> common UI pattern. However, requiring valid field entries before 
> enabling the button is not. There must be more feedback to the user 
> about error conditions than just not enabling the button.
>
> I would suggest that the Add button be enabled as soon as both fields 
> have non-blank content and that clicking Add will report, via and 
> alert, both the invalid field and what constitutes a vaild entry.
this is pretty much what it says in my annotations:
http://xdesign.sfbay.sun.com/projects/solaris/subprojects/package_mngt/UI_specs/ui_spec_phase2/html-mockup/43_repositories_dialog_2.htm
but I will rephrase the annotations according to your suggestions, Frank.

jenya



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