Permission to Mount

James Wilkinson james at westexe.demon.co.uk
Thu Mar 10 13:09:34 UTC 2005


Mark Sargent wrote:
> I find this really stupid. To have something in a menu that doesn't 
> allow you to do anything. If it is not a function for that user, it 
> shouldn't appear in the menu at all, period.

Incidentally, the Gnome HIG (Human Interface Guidelines) disagrees with
you:

# Do not remove command items from the menu when they are unavailable,
# make them insensitive instead. This allows the user to infer what
# functionality the application provides even if it is not currently
# available, and keeping the menu structure static makes it easier to
# memorize.

(http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/menus-design.html)

The question remains: is there enough functionality left in the program
to justify making the option insensitive. The example the HIG gives is
to disable "Revert" when the user hasn't made any changes: it's fairly
obvious in that case why you can't revert.

In this case, it will *not* be obvious to a Normal User whether and why
they can or cannot mount filesystems. The error message does provide
some functionality, and providing the explanation does help the user
interface.

So it's arguable that it's a bug in the HIG. It's arguable that it's a
bug in Fedora. I doubt you'll get changes in FC3: you could try FC4 test
1, due out on Monday, and bugzilla that. Or you could ask the GNOME
project to clarify the HIG.

Good luck!

James.
-- 
E-mail address: james | The end result of 1000 years of ransacking other
@westexe.demon.co.uk  | people's language and grammar is a language of almost
                      | infinite flexibility. Why - we can even understand the
                      | Americans!   -- Phil Launchbury




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