Re: [PATCH] user-manual: mention git gui citool (commit, amend)

From: Shawn O. Pearce <spearce@spearce.org>
Date: Aug 4, 2007, 06:33 UTC
Message-ID: <20070804063353.GR20052@spearce.org>
In-Reply-To: <20070803125601.GA28323@fieldses.org>

"J. Bruce Fields" <bfields@fieldses.org> wrote:

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> On Thu, Aug 02, 2007 at 11:01:01PM -0400, Shawn O. Pearce wrote:
> > So I'd really love to do better.  But frankly I'm at a loss here
> > and just don't know what sort of change to make.
> 
> The one thing that struck me when I fired up git-gui was that it wasn't
> obvious to me which things I should try clicking on.

Yea, that I have noticed with other newbies.  I have recently had
the chance to observe a few new users work with git-gui for the
first time and I have noticed that they just don't quite know what
to poke at and experiment with.  Unlike with many other applications
where its more obvious what's there for the poking...

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> For example: the buttons, drop-down menus, and check-boxes all cry out
> to be played with.  But the filenames in the lists at the top are less
> obvious, and it might never have occurred to me on my own to right-click
> on the diff hunks at the bottom.  That just looks like passive colorized
> text to me.

It doesn't just look like colored text to me anymore. Which is a huge problem for me as an interface designer. I know what's there.

BTW, the reason why there's a context menu in the diff viewer? I right clicked in there one day and nothing happened. The fact that nothing happen surprised the hell out of me. Even though I had written all of that code myself. So I went off and added that context menu.

Later I realized I wanted to just stage that hunk. I could click on it all I want, but the $@!*@(!@* computer didn't do what I really wanted it to. So stage hunk was born and added to the context menu.

That experience is actually true of much of the git-gui UI.  Things
happen there only because I've actually tried to do something,
only to shock myself when I find out it doesn't work!  I promptly
write the patch and contribute it.  :)

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> I don't know what sort of user-interface conventions say "play with
> me!", though.  Random ideas:
> 
> 	- maybe the cursor should change shape over the diff hunks (or
> 	  just the headers?)

That's actually a pretty cool idea. I might play with it just to see how I feel about the cursor changing and if it gives me any ideas about what might happen under it. Though as I write this email I'm thinking that if the cursor changed shape when it was over the diff hunk header I'd try to left-click the hunk header to get a reaction from the computer.

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> 	- maybe buttons, hunk headers, file names, etc., should all be
> 	  in the same color?
> 	- maybe the hunk headers could benefit from a little more
> 	  decoration?  I don't know how to do that without just making
> 	  the display look more cluttered, though.
> 	- maybe left-clicking on diff hunks should do something too?

I just had a thought of putting an actual button icon in the first column of the hunk header lines. If it looks enough like a button icon thingy, users might just click on it. And when they do we can present that diff pane context menu, and look, they can stage their hunks! ;-)

Just a thought. Utterly random too. Musta been that alpha particle slamming into a neuron.

Thanks for the ideas. Its certainly given me some things to experiment with in the next week or so when I can find the time.

-- 
Shawn.