About Dialogs

Contents

About Dialogs

GTK's about dialogs provide information about each application, including links, legal details and credits.

Goals

Be simple
Utilize the details pages in Software - don't reproduce what they already do
Focus on the main case of getting the version number, and potentially getting other information to report a bug

Detailed goals

Show basic information about the app:
- Name
- Version
- Developer
Link to the app page in Software
Display legal information:
- Copyright
- License
- Warranty
List contributors

Other potential goals:

Other legal details:
- EULA?
- Privacy policy?
- Licenses/details of bundled libraries
Show the module name of the project (eg. "nautilus" for Files)
Link to an issue tracker, or have a "report an issue" button

Constraints

Since about dialogs are part of GTK, they need to work when apps are run on other platforms, potentially without the presence of Software.

Relevant Art

GNOME

Recipes

Firefox

Each of the links at the bottom opens a page in a new tab (information is shipped locally).

Chrome

Discussion

There's some obvious overlap between the information that's displayed in Software and what's shown in about dialogs. (Although it's worth noting that Software might not always be available.) One solution might be to focus about dialogs on more technical/support cases and leave the richer user-focused information role to Software.

Applications that are targeted at developer audiences might want to expose more technical details than normal.