[GNC] survey: unifying the appearance in different options dialogs

[Geert Janssens]

Op vrijdag 3 augustus 2018 04:18:55 CEST schreef Adrien Monteleone:
> After reading John Ralls’ reply on the wizards (example 4) I agree with him,
> the sidebar list needs to go. Adding numbered steps would help, but the
> better option is to not even list the steps, just walk the user through the
> steps with next <> back buttons. I think this would also adhere better to
> the Gnome HIG concerning removing confusing information presented to the
> user. The user cannot click a later tab and jump there, so don’t present
> them as tabs at all, use a different presentation and guide the user
> through the options in the order you need to guide them.
> 
> Regards,
> Adrien
> 

The list of steps is controlled by the GtkAssistant code itself. It's not 
something gnucash can enable or disable. So if you think it should go, 
essentially you're asking for an update in Gtk code.

And I don't agree they should go. An assistant is created when a complex 
process is to be run in smaller steps. The list on the side is a guide to the 
user to learn which steps the whole process will involve and how far in the 
process the user is at any point in the process.

Have you ever bought online ? That's almost always a multi-step process and 
it's almost always accompanied by some visual representation of the steps to 
expect/processed.

Having said that, I also find the way gtk has chosen to represent this makes 
it confusing, because there's almost no visual difference with a side bar 
list. Almost, because if you look closely the selected element is highlighted 
in gray rather than in (on my system default) blue. The gtk designers should 
have imagined something more distinct (like keeping the darker gray background 
as the rest of the inactive dialog and indicating the current step with a 
small arrow, instead of using the lighter background similar to active lists).

Numbering could help a bit although at the same time it may be challenging 
because in some assistants pages are added or removed dynamically depending on 
the results of a previous step. Maybe that's poor design too though.

Geert