UI module owner

[timeless]

On 6/26/06, Gervase Markham <gerv at mozilla.org> wrote:
> Are you saying that "Give me some help" is not a sufficient indication
> of what the link does, or sufficient encouragement to click it?

I'll never read it. It's in the wrong place with the wrong text and no glitz.

> What do you think the link text should say? Or do you think the Help
> trigger should be elsewhere? Or that it should be present even in the
> base page?

Probably, using a design I'll describe elsewhere the widgets should
come with the help in such a way that until a user uses or tells
bugzilla a list of things that the user knows (by importing settings),
bugzilla should offer help for things it doesn't think the user has
used.

> Well, the top of the newly-reloaded page does say "For help, mouse over
> the page elements." So you can find out what has help by mousing over
> things. Having said that, all the widgets should have help - do any of
> them not?

No idea, it's not worth my time to do it. and clearly it wasn't worth
your time to try.

> It's hard to dotted-underline a widget...

A widget that doesn't have text is buggy. In fact, Given that I'm
suggesting using examples (see below) instead of explanations of
features, you should stop hovertipping the actual form fields. so
"Only bugs changed between" would get the underlines and hovertip.


> The original poster was incorrect in their understanding. There is no
> need for a minus sign, and it is ignored if present. The help text is
> correct (if perhaps a little terse).

Everyone I know uses -2w not 2w. There's actually too much text and
yet it still fails miserably. Explanation without example doesn't
work. Sorry. And it should be obvious what the recourse to this is.

> For things changed between 3 weeks and 2 days ago, you put "3w" into the
> first box, and "2d" into the second box.

See, this is considerably shorter than what's in the box right now,
and yet, it's actually useful.

> We should probably permit a more verbose version of this syntax.

I wouldn't use it. And I wouldn't doc it. But there's nothing wrong
with supporting it. Unless that developer could have been fixing
hundreds of other bugs we have.

> What is incorrect about that help text? Suggestions for better wording
> are most welcome.

In fact, I think we should probably ditch help text in favor of
example uses (possibly with pictures), include a link to the
documentation in the box.

> How do you suggest integrating such help into the interface? Or are you
> suggesting changes to the Bugzilla Guide?

Looks like I'm suggesting the items actually be instructions for an
example plus a picture (or just a prefilled inline form in the tip
box, not sure I care too much) and a link to the full doc for any
extra details.

Note that you don't have to have just one example, you can use expander widgets

> search for bugs changed last week
> search for bugs changed between three months ago and last month
v search for bugs that changed between January 14, 2004 and November 15, 2005.

[ 2004-1-14 ] and [ 2004-11-15]