Use of standard GTK+ tabs in preferences

[infernux]

There has been much work on Gajim to make it conform to the HIG.

While the HIG doesn't disallow icons on tabbed notebooks it is discurraged to do this and so far Gajim is the onl application I know which uses this. I propose to change the preferences tabs to look more like this example from the HIG:

http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/draft_hig_new/images/controls-notebook.png

This would not only be more consistent with the rest of the GNOME desktop (and I think KDE also) but it will solve a few usability issues (for example the icon used for "general" is normally used for centering text, the icon for "chat" is "document new"... those icons don't really fit at all)

[infernux]

Mockup how it should look like

[asterix]

maybe icon can be nicer, I agree, but tabs with icons are nice than without IMHO.

moreover we also use icons in chat window

[nk]

I've also thought about it. I know HIG discourages them. Tabs with icons become larger, and give a strange "oh this is too much for me" feeling to the user that first sees the prefs window. I vote for them to go.

[michael.monreal@…]

Replying to asterix:

maybe icon can be nicer, I agree, but tabs with icons are nice than without IMHO. moreover we also use icons in chat window

The chat tabs are different: the icon can perhaps help to quickly get the idea what status etc the chat is in. In this case the icon actually makes sense (compare this to the icons used in browser tabs in Firefox: the icon helps to quickly get an idea what webpages are open)

But the preferences window is static, every time you open it (which should be not very often anyway!) the tabs will have the same order.

I just have the feeling that even if Gajim actually used meaningful icons in the preferences dialog, they would not necessarily help. Less is more in this case. I very much agree with nk and the "too much" feeling.

[nk]

Michael, you are right to say this, I also thought about the Firefox example as a reply to chat window tabs that Yann said.

we used to have icons even in account modification window (Yann do you remember those old days with the huge icons? :)) and I removed them.

I think, also because of staticness of the window, that those icons should be removed ASAP.

[patrys]

+1 for them to go

[asterix]

(In [7593]) ok ok bye bye icons in preferences tab fixes #2734