Re: Add topic button in new bookmark dialog

On Sun, 2004-02-29 at 07:43, Piers Cornwell wrote:
> Picking up from my previous semi-successful attempts at moving bugs 
> which need a decision making forward:
> 
> http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=110640
> Add topic button in new bookmark dialog
> 
> On one hard, our resident usability expert says No to this and so do 
> Apple. Most other browsers say Yes to this, and our users seem to want 
> it. Personally, i'm undecided :p
> 
> Anyone have any further opinions?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> -Piers

As a user, I must say that the lack of add-topic functionality in the
add bookmark dialog is quite possibly my single greatest current
frustration with Epiphany.  Also I strongly agree with the existing
comment on that bug which suggests having a "new category" listed at the
bottom of existing categories, although I think having a button there
would be ugly.  Perhaps just some text like "<New Topic>", with brackets
to visually set it apart, of course at the end of the list, not
alphabetized, and leave off the checkbox from that item until the user
renames it.  I think this would be simple from the user's perspective
and would relate well to the mechanism used to add topics in the manage
bookmarks dialog.[1]

It's wrong to assume that users will have the prescience or even the
desire to come up with all their topics out of the clear blue before
they start adding bookmarks.[2]  Given that, you end up with the common
usage of adding a bookmark and concurrently needing to add at least one
topic for it.  Requiring to go back to the main Epiphany window and open
a new dialog is not good UI design IMO.

Especially since the set-based rather than tree-based approach to
bookmark categories in Epiphany sets it apart, and since adding a
bookmark to multiple categories is often very useful, I think it's very
important to make adding categories at the time as painless as possible.

-Michaeljohn

[1] For consistency it might be wise to allow renaming all topics here:
renaming the "new topic" once and then not being able to fix a typo
would be highly counter-intuitive.

[2] This is of course easier for those who start by importing their
bookmarks from another browser.