User Interface question/suggestion/observation - debate invited

[PJuggler]

I have an Asus 701 netbook that I still experiment with...checking out lightweight distros, etc. and two things come up again and again. It doesn't matter what distro, it's all the same and I'd like some input from users and developers alike.

1. The screen format from the beginning has always been wider than it is tall (4:3 at least). Why, then, are the dialogs sometimes too tall to fit on a screen that might be standard VGA (640 x 480). There's room to the side to put the OK/Cancel dialogs and make it work on all screens yet everyone chooses to run it off the bottom of the screen and make it unusable.

2. Has anyone ever proposed a standard for OK/Cancel/Back dialogs? I have seen OK on the left and Cancel on the right and vice-versa in the same application (Gramps comes to mind but don't think I'm picking on it, that's just an example). I have a simple suggestion:

For languages that read left to right and: (Back)/Cancel/OK.
For languages that read right to left: OK/Cancel/(Back).

This way even if you could not see enough of the button to read it you could still have a good idea of what it does. Tooltips would be good, also.

Thoughts, anyone?

[rokytnji]

It doesn't matter what distro, it's all the same and I'd like some input from users and developers alike.

1. The screen format from the beginning has always been wider than it is tall (4:3 at least). Why, then, are the dialogs sometimes too tall to fit on a screen that might be standard VGA (640 x 480). There's room to the side to put the OK/Cancel dialogs and make it work on all screens yet everyone chooses to run it off the bottom of the screen and make it unusable.

Sounds like no matter what distro. You are talking about mainstream installers like Ubuntu and Mint. My Antix Icewm and FluxBox Window managers do not have this problem on my EEEPC 701SD. Puppeee Linux also on my SD card for that Netbook
also does not display that problem either.

On a side note. That Netbook came with Windows XP and it ran as slow as Winter Molasses and none of the Windows or content opened would fit the screen without dragging the Windows down. I forgot what I did to drag windows around during a Ubuntu Netbook install that I tried on the 701 that exhibited what you are talking about.
I think it was Shift+left mouse click and drag but that was a while back so I can be wrong.

http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/9620/puppeee.png

http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/7...reenshotcy.jpg