Where Do I Click

Points to take away today Usability is important What is available in Eclipse How to use it 03.03.2009 2 Usability

Don‘t judge a book by its cover? One bad experience and poof...customers are history. Sure, you can replace them, but at five times the cost. Pavvo Hanninen, Director, University of Alabama Any darn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple Albert Einstein You can use an eraser on the drafting table or a sledge hammer on the construction site Frank Lloyd Wright 03.03.2009 3 Usability http://www.theomandel.com/resources/quotes.html

Usability in Eclipse applications How the application should look and behave Style guide  How users can see an overview of important info Welcome pages  Guiding users’ first steps in the application Cheat sheets  Helping users with specific problems during use Context sensitive help, control decoration  03.03.2009 4 Usability

The style guide Aim: consistent UI across Eclipse projects Covers various aspects of UI Prompts, initial focus position etc. in wizards, dialogs  Guidelines for capitalization  Keyboard and mouse accessibility  Where to put menu entries  Where to make action available  Icons, tooltips, shortcuts  http://wiki.eclipse.org/User_Interface_Guidelines 03.03.2009 5 Usability

The welcome pages (Eclipse Intro) Control the first thing a user sees In your application org.eclipse.core.runtime.products  org.eclipse.ui.intro  In the plugin org.eclipse.ui.intro.configExtension  id=org.eclipse.ui.intro.universalConfig  HTML and CSS files 03.03.2009 6 Usability

The cheat sheets Interactive tutorial Step by step instructions  Manual or automatic  Wide range of options Embedded help, optional steps  Sequential sheets, composite sheets  Hierarchy Cheat sheet  task  step  sub step  03.03.2009 7 Usability

Using the cheat sheets New plugin Extension point:  org.eclipse.ui.cheatsheets.cheatSheetContent  Wizards and editors to create cheat sheets Hints: Modal dialogs & screen size  Tags in sub steps  Show easiest way to complete task  Introduction and conclusion  03.03.2009 8 Usability

Help in the application Context sensitive help PlatformUI.getWorkbench().getHelpSystem()  IWorkbenchHelpSystem.setHelp(Control control, String  contextId) Help Listener (F1) automatically set on the control  ContextId used in the help plugin Which help page should be shown  Help structure is important 03.03.2009 9 Usability

Info bobbles (control decoration) Specific help for UI components Good for use in dialogs and wizards  Saves the user having to look in the documentation  org.eclipse.jface.fieldassist.ControlDecoration Since Eclipse 3.3  New ControlDecoration(Control control, int position)  setImage(Image image)  setDescriptionText(String text)  03.03.2009 10 Usability

Summary Usability is just as important as features Eclipse offers and supports various options Usability under constant review… 03.03.2009 11 Usability

Questions? Programming today is a race between software engineers  striving to build bigger and better idiot proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.   Rick Cook, The Wizardry Compiled  Visit stand 204 in the exhibition hall for more information  03.03.2009 12 Usability

Where Do I Click

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