Comments on: Installing new fonts

By: gerard

gerard — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:10:18 +0000

“AbiWord wants to install a font” implies it already has (found) the font, but then I need to click the search button?
By the way, I like this kind of blogpost, thanks.

By: Reinout van Schouwen

Reinout van Schouwen — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 08:47:05 +0000

@byter: Since you’re too lazy to look it up, here’s what the HIG says:
“Write button labels as imperative verbs, for example Save, Print. This allows users to select an action with less hesitation. An active phrase also fits best with the button’s role in initiating actions, as contrasted with a more passive phrase. For example Find and Log In are better buttons than than Yes and OK.”

By: Yo'av

Yo'av — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 07:02:31 +0000

can X.org install a font on-the-fly anyway? or is this going to be like ‘would you like to install the font?’, ‘yes’, ‘font is installed. restart X and open abiword again’?

By: Soyuz

Soyuz — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 04:02:28 +0000

Totally confusing!!

If the app wants to install font then why would I need to search for the font?

By: Matthew W. S. Bell

Matthew W. S. Bell — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:01:38 +0000

Search automatically. If this takes a long time, have a UI that reflects this taking place.

By: byter

byter — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:53:08 +0000

Lots of good replies that may make this question moot however does the Gnome HIG say anything about the buttons matching the question?

“Do you want to search for a suitable font now?”

Should there be No/Yes buttons instead of Close/Search buttons?

By: reinouts

reinouts — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:02:19 +0000

Random brainfart: couldn’t systems on a LAN advertise their (Free) fonts using Avahi so that other pc’s could pick it up in no time without requiring access to the package manager?

By: Stiph

Stiph — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:49:47 +0000

Great work, except I’m not sure I understand why PK needs 10s to find a font

I tried it from time to time, and in the manager it takes ages to only get access to the list of say, the accessories category.

Is it feasible to reduce the lag here, where is it coming from? You mentioned the network I/O, but the cache is already updated from time to time, why would you lookup using the network, or at least try the cache first, maybe?

(ok, sounds simple to me, but obviously, it certainly is not :p Good job for all your work Richard)

By: uwog

uwog — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:37:20 +0000

@hughsie: it might not matter that a search takes a ‘long time’: as soon as you have found a result in the background, we can show the dialog. When we have the new font, we just relayout the document, and it looks all nice and pretty.

As for the network traffic: well, if that’s really a problem for some users, then one could disable auto-search by default.

Whatever solution you come up with: nice work so far!

By: Robin

Robin — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:24:09 +0000

Why can’t it search directly and then you can press a button named “Install”? The extra “search” step is not needed in my opinion. Searching in the repository should be pretty fast and doesn’t need internet connection, so it’s no security risk or anything.