Summersault Blog

Sunbird: A simpler, easier interface

Sunbird simply gets a lot of details right. Let’s look at something simple, such as adding a new event to the calendar. Accessing this function in Sunbird is very easy. You can click the icon labeled “New Event” or just use the intuitive: “Control-N”. It’s also intuitively accessed under “File: New Event”.

KOrganizer has an icon that looks like “new document” in the same location, but it does something much less useful– creates a window with an empty calendar. I’m not sure why someone would want a shortcut for what seems to be a rarely needed feature. It appears KOrganizer has no icon at all in the default toolbar for “New Event”. “Control-N” in Korganizer does nothing. I found “New Event” in the less common “Action” menu. Since it’s such a primary function, having it in the “File” menu seems better today, even though KOrganizer’s classification as an “Action” is more technically correct.

Below I have screenshots of the two “New Event” dialog boxes. Here again Sunbird offers a number of detail improvements. First, notice that Konqueror has three additional tabs here that I have never needed: “Attendees”, “Attachments”, and “Free/Busy”. I tried the “Attendees” feature once, but the person I added didn’t get the e-mail which seemed necessary for the feature to be useful, so I gave up. The “Free/Busy” screen looks complex enough to deserve a handy “Help” button, but there is none. It’s not clear how to use it. The “Attachments” interface is simple enough, I just don’t need it.

Let’s look at some of the details on main “New Event” screen.

KOrganizer - Extra features while missing the basics
Sunbird - Just what I need, presented well

Starting at the top, Sunbird has a better title by calling the window “New Event”, while KOrganizer calls it “Edit Event”, which sounds like an existing event is being modified.

To describe the time span, Sunbird uses the wording “This event lasts all day.”, while KOrganizer says “No time associated”. Sunbird’s description is easier to grok because it’s a positive statement in plain English.

For all of KOrganizer’s additional features, it misses two key elements that Sunbird adds. Most importantly, Sunbird allows me to choose which calendar my event goes on to, with an intelligent default. With KOrganizer there is no option for this, leaving me to guess what’s happening. My solution with Korganizer was to only give myself write-access to one calendar.

Sunbird allows me to mark an event as “Tenative”, “Confirmed” or “Cancelled”. This seems very useful, but KOrganizer
lacks the feature.

Pages: Previous | Next ( 1 2 3 4 5 )

This entry was posted on Friday, June 3rd, 2005 at 7:46 am and is filed under Desktop Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.