I have a list control in GTK+ (a gtk.TreeView with one column), with "find-as-you type" enabled (so typing any text will open a small search field for searching through the list entries). Now, if the user enters some search text like "abc", should I search only for entries starting with "abc", or should I search for entries that contain ...
It has always been best practice to open links in the same window. Should that still be the rule now that most common browsers use tabs? Personally i prefer closing a tab/window over hitting the backbutton. What are your thoughts? ...
Emacs has a useful transpose-words command which lets one exchange the word before the cursor with the word after the cursor, preserving punctuation. For example, ‘stack |overflow’ + M-t = ‘overflow stack|’ (‘|’ is the cursor position). <a>|<p> becomes <p><a|>. Is it possible to emulate it in Vim? I know I can use dwwP, but it doesn’t...
I tried GNUBOX which use bluetooth to connect to my computer then to the internet. It's very painful to set up (under windows more than under linux, but it's still painful, it works 1 time on 3). I own a Nokia 6630 so there is no WLAN support. Is there any emulator? I'd need to know something like max width, max height ect... usability...
Let's face it: writing proper, standards compliant HTML is quite difficult to do. Writing semantic HTML is even more so, but I don't think it's possible for a computer to figure that out. So my question to you is what would the "ideal" feedback for a user who entered HTML be? Would it be a W3C validator style list of errors and correspo...
For an ecommerce website how do you measure if a change to your site actually improved usability? What kind of measurements should you gather and how would you set up a framework for making this testing part of development? ...
What books do you recommend for a programmer who wants to learn about design? Every programmer needs to evolve and learn things outside of his specialization. I would like to collect a list of the best material in the field of design for such programmers. Some guidelines: I'm interested both in graphic design (use of whitespace, fon...
Hello everybody! I have the in my opinion odd request to close a wizard form as Done or OK if Enter was pressed on the keyboard even if the OK/DONE button is not focused. In my opinion that would be a usability mistake. For example: In the wizard you may have multiple controls, buttons, check boxes, multiple line controls and they all ...
After working for a few days with Eclipse Java I totally got addicted to pressing Ctrl and clicking on an identifier to go to its definition. Since then I've been looking for a way to achieve this in Visual Studio as well. I realize VS has right click, Go to definition, and that F12 does the same. I also realize that Visual Assist does ...
Hi, Usually I'm fortunate enough to work with really good designers. They take care of the look and feel for all of the web applications / sites I build. In the past when I've done cheap or free work for people for projects I'm interested in, I've used a template from templatemonster or similar. I want to get involved with quite a la...
If asked, I would bet that every manager would agree that software usability is important. Unfortunately, when it comes time to put their money where there mouths are, they shy away and tell the programmer to just make it usable. What is everyone's experience with usability in the workplace? Is there a usability team? How many people...
I have an application that manages patient demographic information. Along with this data a user can scan a picture of a patient and assign that picture to a patient. When the user clicks the scan button a separate application is opened as a dialog in order to scan the image. When running this on XP everything worked fine. The imaging app...
While this is more of a written language issue than a coding one, it is something that programmers must do in circumstances where copy is not provided by a client or someone else. Any examples of error messages, good or bad, are welcome to make the point. I briefly searched and could not find a dupe thread. Ok, have at it. Thanks, all. ...
I know many people who use computers every day, who do not know how to select multiple items in a HTML select box/list. I don't want to use this control in my pages any more: Please pick 3 options: <select name="categories" size="10" multiple="yes"> So what user-friendly alternatives do you suggest? Perhaps have 10 tickboxes...or mayb...
As a two-monitor user at work, I've noticed that applications behave differently with regards to what monitor they open on (primary or secondary monitor, the last monitor the application opened on, and so on). To be honest, some applications annoy me because I want them to open on my primary monitor and I'll move them to my secondary if ...
I am developing a specialty application where the end-user needs to operate multiple controls simultaneously. The application is used to "tune" the control parameters of an electronic device to calibrate the unit to its best performance. Currently, there is a UI with multiple graphical sliders which the operator click-drags one slider ...
We have an auto-complete list that's populated when an you send an email to someone, which is all well and good until the list gets really big you need to type more and more of an address to get to the one you want, which goes against the purpose of auto-complete I was thinking that some logic should be added so that the auto-complete r...
I'm a developer not a wordsmith and as such I'm stuck. We have a subscription based site whereby users may well come across our 401 page. We've decided that the IIS 401;2 page needs replacing. Does anyone have any examples or advise about writing a good non offensive 401 page? ...
What are the usability considerations that should be taken into account by anyone who decided to build a good adult web site? Disclaimer: I know the question is going to cause some controversy, but please let’s stay professional, stop giggling and see if tasks that audience of such sites tries to achieve make usability considerations an...
When a user comes across your site's 404 File Not Found error page, it is most likely not what they were looking for. Here, you have the opportunity to turn a dead end into a resource that can help your visitor find whatever they were looking for. If you were going to create the perfect 404 File Not Found error page, what would it do? W...