Hi everybody, (I wrote a message on this list 2 weeks ago. Posting as a non-member to a members-only list I waited for approval of my message by the list moderator, but the message never made into the list. Now I subscribed and i am posting a slightly-modified version of that message.)
I use Scid very rarely, although I think it is a great piece of work. >From the perspective of a common user, I find the user interface disappointing. To be constructive, here I am trying to list a number of issues that any user immediately sees and that can be greatly improved. 1. "Ugly icon. Brownish. What are those two pieces of hair?". Those are the impression of a friend of mine. I fully agree. 2. Splash screen. It makes a program look outdated, and Scid doesn't really need it. It's even too fast on my pc (which is entry-level class, nothing fancy), giving the impression of a window error that the program rapidly closes. If you feel that other users with a slow system need it, then maintain it but on top of the main window. Also, either you are showing useful information (but I don't think so...) and you have to make it persist for a while for people with faster pc, or useless information that should be kept to a minimum (ideally, just a small logo, *no words*). 3. The icons on the screen are terrible, the worst part of the program. They look like "Windows 3.1", if you know what I mean. The ones on the second rank are not even well separated from each other. 4. Junk stuff on the screen. [Event "?"], [Site "?"], and so on, on the right. Not even formatted. Game 0: ? -- ?, * (0) ????, and so on, at the bottom. If those fields are empty, you better don't show it (maintaining the formatting, which is very important). 5. The title of the window. "Scid - [clipbase] (game 0/0)". All modern programs use "nameofthefile - nameoftheprogram", and if nameofthefile is not available they suggest one, such as "Untitle 1 - OpenOffice.org Writer". "game 0" is misleading, that is the first game (see example of OpenOffice) of a new database (no matter if one later chooses to save that database or not), so it should be 1/1. Anyway, on top of the window is not the right place for that piece of information. It should be at the bottom. 6. The color of the chessboard. Don't get me wrong, I love wood and I would use exactly that one, but this is not what gives a first impression of a modern software. Choosing combination 4 in Colors would be much better. 7. Menu names. "File, Edit, View" are the first three entries in such different programs as OpenOffice, Firefox, FileZilla, etc. There is a reason why. Of course other ways are possible, and it doesn't make a great difference to a long-time user. But first-time user gets a bit mislead, and that adds up to the other things he might not like. 8. (this was absent in the former message) The icon within the program window is different with respect to the icon launching the program. And by the way, the former is more "modern-looking" than the latter, but i cannot even identify what it represents. ...Well, I have tons of other observations, but I think it is enough here. I have just highlighted things that pops up to my eye (as a common user) *before even starting to use the program*! If you are further interested in my observations, I could add more. And please, don't get me wrong: I am happy Scid exists and I always suggest it as the best choice. I really appreciate your work on that, even if I think it can be greatly improved. Greetings, Bruno. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Download Intel® Parallel Studio Eval Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance. See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta. http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev _______________________________________________ Scid-users mailing list Scid-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/scid-users
