just 2ct
Bram: Should I say more?
Jep, you should say this is the default view.
This can still be improved and the old and new maintainer are aware of this and working on it, but it is still a big difference to the full options view you choose to show off
5 August 2005 at 11:31
hmmm, seeing this, it would seem the following :
On the other hand, a mini-preview could be automatic…
Still, a dialog I use a lot, and which is incredibly usefull…
5 August 2005 at 11:55
I think a few things can still savely be removed from the simple view and moved to the detailed view under “Options”:
Keep this dialog open after printing. Which basic user really needs that? It is probably pretty new though, as I don’t see it in KDE 3.4.2
System Options? Same thing. It’s not something you need often, so it only needs to be shown in the detailed view I’d say.
5 August 2005 at 13:15
I personally think that, if you take out “Keep this..”, you should replace it with a quick, natural option currently missing: “How many copies?”. When a user wants to print, the only two things he should be forced to choose are the physical printer (where he will go and collect the output) and how many copies he wants (how many sheets he should expect). Everything else is machine-related stuff that he’d rather ignore.
A basic user doesn’t need to see Output file (”what is an output file? I just tell my printer to print!”), and possibly the State label might morph in a more intuitive icon showing the current printer availability (what is a “print job” anyway? the user doesn’t need to know). And yes, System Options might be hidden as well.
5 August 2005 at 14:46
Well, I did my duty and http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=110230
5 August 2005 at 14:47
I agree with #1, but still miss some of the often used options (number of copies for example)
5 August 2005 at 14:53
Task-based interface
For the first time in my life, I can say today that I understand why human-interface researchers and designers stress this “fanciful” idea of task-based controls. Check out this post about the default KDE Print dialog:
5 August 2005 at 17:05
I also created a mockup for the bug…
5 August 2005 at 19:01
I love the last mockup!
5 August 2005 at 19:35
Your mockup looks good and I voted for the bug
I don’t necessarily agree with the current rush to take out options from any dialog, however this is a nice little improvement. Even if the “preview” feature doesn’t make it in the end, because it might be slow to appear, I’d still be happy 
5 August 2005 at 20:45
Dammit I’ve been clicking cancel 5 times in my KDE trying to get rid of that unexpected dialog popup.
6 August 2005 at 6:59
Navindra: LOL
6 August 2005 at 18:42
Responding to some of the suggestions here:
1.) Moving the status to the dropdown (as suggested by Cyrille) sounds like a good idea, as it gives you the status instantly while selecting a printer (important for environments where a few identical printers are used by a workgroup, it’s important to know which printer is currently online/ offline/ busy)
2.) Don’t remove the ‘Location’, and, under no circumstances, remove the ‘Type’! Usually, the default names are not really sufficient/ not descriptive. It might be possible to change the dropdown to show “TYPE (NAME) - [STATUS ICON]“, for example: “Samsung ML-1510 (laser) - accepting jobs”…
3.) I would keep the “Options” and “System Options”, ideally using that fold-out dialog suggested by Daniel Molkentin ( http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/1241 ) for ‘Options’. I think it’s save to move the ‘Keep this dialog…’ checkbox to the ‘Options’ fold-out, though.
4.) Leave the ‘Output file’ line as is. It’s very important for almost every user, as PDF’s are not really that uncommon. And it’s also better than a second popup to enter a filename appearing after you selected the PDF writer and hit ‘Print’ in the main print dialog.
5.) I like the idea to show a print preview. This feature is especially usefull for workgroup printers (I’ve seen people trying to print a plain A4 latter using an A3 color laser by mistake, that’s not only a waste of time, but also a serious waste of money - a preview would have at least shown that the selected printer might not be what the user wanted).
8 August 2005 at 8:13
Sorry if I seem to be quiet on the comments, but I think all this suggestions are better suited on kde-print.
My topic was not the usability of the print dialog. It can be improved, but to be honest I am not too thrilled by most mockups posted (the number of copies in the main dialog? It is “1″ 99% of the time)
Options vary from user to user, and simply posting your favourite subset as default is not what usability is about.
There are very good ideas here and I will point Christian Tibirna to this thread when he is back from LWCE SF where he is representing KDE Print.