The Eclipse SDK is feature rich.  So much so, that its not uncommon for us to see bugs requesting a feature when in fact the feature is there, just difficult to find.  This pains me, because knowing how much work has gone into implementing a feature, its a shame that still we fail the user because they couldn’t find it.

Case in point is a recent bug asking for the ability to save preferences outside of the workspace.  Already exsits!  Its in File->Export->General->Preferences.  Of course!  Who wouldn’t think to look there?  Even for me it took me a minute to find it, all along I was trying to figure out if we really supported it or if I just imaged it (sometimes, being overly imaginative, I confuse “we should do X” with “we did X”).

The general solution to our complex UI is, well complex.  But in this particular case, we’d see a huge benefit from having links to the import/export commands somewhere in the preferences dialog, since, gee, that’s where people expect to be able to import/export preferences.

This seems to me to be a great opportunity for community contribution, since the commands already exist, its should just be a matter of:

1. Determining the right placement in the preferences dialog
2. Creating the links

For an example of links in the preferences, see the page for Team->CVS->Label Decorations and note the two links on that pref page.  The bug is marked HelpWanted so roll up your sleves and help make it easier for the next guy!  As always, the platform UI team is happy to provide you with assistance.

I believe that with a number of these simple fixes we can increase the usability of Eclipse without hurting our heads on deep questions like, “Who the heck ever looks in Import/Export anyway?”.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 2:18 pm and is filed under Usability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.