[Bug 6233] New: wincfg Applications tab gui layout is misleading

Wine Bugs wine-bugs at winehq.org
Wed Sep 20 03:29:11 CDT 2006


http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6233

           Summary: wincfg Applications tab gui layout is misleading
           Product: Wine
           Version: 0.9.15.
          Platform: PC
        OS/Version: Linux
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: enhancement
          Priority: P3
         Component: wine-tools
        AssignedTo: wine-bugs at winehq.org
        ReportedBy: jrodman at winebugzilla.spamportal.net


Brief:

When using the winecfg application, the Applications Settings tab is somewhat 
misleading in that it contains two controls, suggesting a relationship between 
these two controls which is special.  

As a remedy, I recommend moving the Windows Version control out of the 
Applications tab.

Detail:

More clearly, on this tab there are two items.  First there is an applications 
settings list, which allows one to select Default Settings, or an alternately 
added Application, and buttons to manage the applications which are added to 
this list.  Secondly, there is a "combo box" labelled Windows Version, which 
allows the user to select values such as Windows 2000, Windows ME, etc.  The 
implication of this second control matches the documentation: it informs which 
of the many subtly different windows API implementations to conform to.

However, the implication of the first control is that it enables one to add 
applications which will be handled as if they were running under alternate 
versions of Windows.  Because these two controls are presented on a single 
tab, an implied relationship is created suggesting that this is the only 
Application-specific settable value. It is quite possible that the 
documentation for this control explains it fully and completely (I haven't 
checked), but the barrier to understanding for me was so high, that I began to 
go look for command line options to pass to wine to set other values that I 
wished set in an application specific manner.

I believe the usability of winecfg would be improved without usability 
regressions (save the transition) if the Windows Version selector was placed 
in another tab, perhaps a new one.  For the sake of argument, I believe a 
System & Libraries tab with two enclosed discrete boxes for the two types 
would not have cognitive confusion, although it might be too crowded.

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