As of program version 3.23, it seems that the following clarifications to the user interface would be helpful:
- In the "Enter Safe Combination" window that occurs during comparison of 2 databases, make the Advanced button more noticeable. Right now, it is presented the same as OK, Cancel, and Help. Of those 3, the only one that will be even glanced at (usually) by some users (who use the Enter key instead of the OK button) is Cancel, and then only when they don't feel like clicking the Windows close button or pressing the Esc key.
a. Change "Advanced" to "Advanced..." to indicate that the button requires more info from the user in order to do something useful. That is, for users who scan the dialog quickly with their eyes, the ellipsis "..." will actually do more to indicate the purpose of the button than the word "Advanced" does.
b. Move "Advanced..." to be under the right-hand end of the password-entry field (level with the grayed-out "Open as read-only" checkbox/tickbox). This will distinguish it from the other, more routine buttons that it used to be in line with.
- If the database becomes locked (program minimized to systray, such as because the user went to lunch) while that "Enter Safe Combination" window was open, and then the user unlocks the database, that "Enter Safe Combination" window for the comparison database should re-appear, but the user may not remember what that window is for. There should be cue(s) to indicate the reason for this window, such as changing the title-bar text to "Enter Safe Combination of Comparison Database" and changing the label of the password-entry field to "Safe Combination of Comparison Database" (this label hopefully can be set to vertically-centered justification to handle being 1 line vs. 2 lines when different forms of this dialog are used for different purposes).
- Can the toolbar section of the View menu be made a little more understandable as follows:
b. Reword as "New Icons" / "Classic Icons," since this pair of choices affects not only the toolbars, but also the menus.
a. Group "New Icons" / "Classic Icons" into their own section and the other 3 toolbar items (toolbar, dragbar, and Find) into their own (using dividers).
c. Leave "Show Find Toolbar" in the menu even when the Find toolbar is visible. This is what Firefox does (a widely used and extensively developed program with a similar Find bar). The menu option could be reworded to "Find" as Firefox has. Selecting this menu option when the toolbar is already visible can bring focus to that toolbar, as done by Firefox.
d. The other 2 toolbar options could be reworded to "Main toolbar" and "Dragbar" so the term "toolbars" can be used for all 3 toolbars ("the toolbar" suggests it is the only toolbar, so conflicts with "the toolbars," but "main toolbar" does not), and since the checkmarks can take the place of the word "visible."
- In the View menu, "Flattened" is redundant with "List" and "Nested" is redundant with "Tree." (There is no flattened tree or nested list in this program version.) To avoid confusion ("what about 'nested list?' "), the menu text can be changed to "List (Flattened)" and "Tree (Nested)."
- To help people pick up quickly how the View menu works, the mutually exclusive options ["New Icons" / "Classic Icons" and "List (Flattened)" / "Tree (Nested)"] can have their selection graphics changed from inset checkmarks to dots or similar.
- Right-clicking an entry in the main window opens a context menu. In this menu, the option that would have been chosen if the entry had been double-clicked should be in boldface.
- The exit prompt "Do you want to save changes to the password list?" can be improved:
a. The prompt should indicate whether the changes were in the passwords themselves, or in preferences, or both. For example, "Do you want to save changes?" with 3 possible sentences afterward: "Changes were made to the password list, but not to preferences." "Changes were made to preferences, but not to the password list." "Changes were made to the password list and to preferences."
b. To avoid confusion between "No" and "Cancel," the buttons can be changed from Yes/No/Cancel to Save/Discard/Cancel as in OpenOffice.
Thanks a lot for looking at these.