Projects/Usability/HIG/Contributing

Report problems

If you found an area that was unclear or is not even covered in our HIG, tell us about it. We can be reached on the kde-guidelines mailing-list.

Conventions

Following is a set of guidelines to ensure the HIG itself is consistent.

Terminology

• Use the word Control, not Widget to refer to a user interface element. Rationale: "Control" is more widespread outside the UNIX community. It is also reasonable to expect more and more applications will be written using QtQuick and QtQuick controls in the future.

• Use check box and combo box, not checkbox or combobox.

TODO

Start page

• Figure out what to do of the legacy stuff (at the bottom of the page)

Projects/Usability/HIG/Dialogs

• Fix missing page: inline-editing
• Fix missing page: info panels

Projects/Usability/HIG/ListView

Purpose

Recommendation should be checked

Guidelines

Add subsections

Selection

Check against recommendation.

Choose between either:

1. In any other case, use the dual-list pattern because it allows users to easily see which items are selected at any point, without having to scroll through the available options
2. Use a list box for multiple selections with more than five options.

Get a new type of check boxes for list views implemented: KCheckBoxes:

• KCB are flat (no frame, no shadow, no bevel) for clear differentiation from normal check boxes.
• KCB are hidden by default, that means when no list item is selected.
• KCB have a fade-in effect on mouse over to introduce themselves to users.
• KCB are transparent and therby clearly part of the list item.
• Legacy keyboard use applies to KCB as well. Thus, the whole item can be clicked to toggle option.

Projects/Usability/HIG/Check_Box

• Redo screenshots using Designer
• Fix missing page: list

Projects/Usability/HIG/SOU_Workspace/Two_Lists

• Move to Projects/Usability/HIG/Two_Lists? That is, drop "SOU_Workspace" from the url
• Redo screenshots using Designer
• Fix missing page: Selecting Items from a Pool
• Fix missing page: Picker Dialog

Projects/Usability/HIG/Slider

• Refresh page: it is copied from GNOME guidelines and contains references to figures we do not have

Projects/Usability/HIG/Notifications

Purpose

• Fix missing page: notification mechanism
• Fix missing page: central configuration

Examples

• Add screenshots

Guidelines

• Do not add controls to notification.
  • Thomas: I would remove this. Adding action buttons is allowed in the API and has reasonable use cases, other controls simply cannot be added technically

• Do not override system settings.
  • (remark: more specific)
  • Thomas: Which settings do you mean here?

• Provide title and content text
  • (remark: not precise enough)
  • Thomas: guidelines regarding the wording of title and content are indeed very important. Maybe celeste can help here.

• Customize notification with the origin's icon.
  • Heiko: word "origin" needs to be replaced; "icon" might be replaced by technical term

• Provide actionable information (e.g. "Low battery power" "Only 13 min (2%) capacity remaining. Please save your stuff now. Your system will get shut down soon.")
  • should be according actual text

• Heiko: to be defined: Are all notifications configured in KCM? If not, how to separate?
  • Kai Uwe: All notifications emitted through KNotify (ie. application has a notifyrc file) can be configured. Using the FDO notification dbus iface directly is discouraged. In 4.11 there's a configure button on notifications.

kdehig repository

• Document how to use it
• Move it to KDE playground
• Integrate designer files from http://techbase.kde.org/File:HIG-UI-Files.tar.gz