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

"J. Bruce Fields" [off-list ref] wrote:

On Thu, Aug 02, 2007 at 11:01:01PM -0400, Shawn O. Pearce wrote:

quoted

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...
 

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.  :)
 

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.

	- 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.