Category: Usability and interaction design
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I really want to show icons
Okay, so GNOME/GTK+ doesn’t show icons on buttons anymore unless they are part of a toolbar or you specifically request that they show up. The problem is that because of this, PiTiVi’s play/pause button would end up not showing anything at all. Thus, back then Alessandro inserted this piece of code to force displaying icons on all buttons…
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Evolution's calendar: looking for love
It just occured to me that since I’m on Planet GNOME, I can shamelessly bribe people into fixing bugs in exchange for beer and cheese and whatnot. Wanna get drunk at the Desktop Summit this year? Then please fix these trivial-yet-infuriating usability issues that have been preventing me from using Evolution‘s calendar for years: Drag…
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Don't make me scroll
Let me tell you about a small usability improvement in Pitivi that might provide some inspiration to others. See, I hate scrolling. Unless it’s absolutely necessary and the dialog is bigger than my screen’s height or you expect to tile windows vertically, as an application developer you should avoid scrolling when possible. 2024 edit: a…
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On Cantarell
There was something bothering me with Evolution in GNOME 3 that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Turns out it was Cantarell, the official font for GNOME 3. While both the Droid family (Droid Sans/Serif/Mono) and Cantarell were “designed for on-screen reading”, I find Droid Sans to be much better than Cantarell for small…
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On GtkSwitch
GTK3 includes the new switch button. Sadly, at the time of this writing, there seems to be no HIG recommendation for it yet so I’m left to guess what its proper use should or shouldn’t be. I’m all for choice/flexibility for developers, but what has been worrying me slightly in the new Control Center is the…
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Searching your Media Library
Although my changes were implemented back in December, I had to wait until they were merged today to blog about them: searching the Media Library is now possible in PiTiVi git, which is a feature I wanted for a long time (it makes it much easier to deal with large amounts of footage in a…
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New project settings and rendering UI
It’s no secret that PiTiVi‘s “project settings” and “rendering” dialogs were huge, rigid, and, as Linus would have called them, stupid and ugly: …Until now, that is. Say hi to one of the most invasive and anticipated refactoring/set of bugfixes of the year: Brandon’s new templates/project settings/rendering system (which he blogged about recently [1] [2]…
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Detachable previewer
I know, I know, it’s the third time I’m posting in three days, but a surprise feature was just merged out of the blue and I’m quite excited about it: you can now undock the previewer widget in PiTiVi (even while it is playing). It allows you to do something like this: Obligatory demonstration video…
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Startup Assistant
Part of the PiTiVi Love list, Mathieu Duponchelle has implemented a “welcome screen” (also known as “Startup Wizard”). It is a great little feature which uses GTK Recent to automatically show the last few projects you were working on, so you can open them with two clicks (or by pressing Enter): You wouldn’t believe how often…
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Snowy hackfest & Boston Summit
I had a great time at the Snowy hackfest (and the Boston Summit). Thanks to the subsidy from the GNOME Foundation, I’ve been able to meet tons of brilliant people and help free/open source software while meeting the constraints of my student schedule—and budget! In order to get you all pumped up and excited before…