The use of a GtkComboBox for selecting a user makes the process tedious if
there a more than a handful of user accounts, it has to be opened before the
choices are visible and scrolling a menu bigger than the screen is difficult
(see attached screenshot).
The GNOME HIG state on GtkComboBoxes:
They can be useful when there is insufficient space in a window to use a
group of radio buttons or a single-selection list, with which they are
functionally equivalent.
[...]
Do not use drop-down lists with fewer than three items, or more than about
ten. To offer a choice of two options, use radio buttons or toggle
buttons. To offer a choice of more than ten options, use a list.
[...]
You should normally use radio buttons or a list instead of drop-down
lists, as those controls present all the available options at once without
any further interaction.
I think these points make sense and the use of vertical or horizontal list
widgets by all other display manager frontends such as kdm, sddm, gdm, lxdm,
the kde and unity lightdm greeters seem to confirm that. So could you please
switch (back) to some form of list for selecting user names?
Hey,
while I acknowledge that the combobox is unpractical for more >n users (n being a bit of a random number, whatever exceeds your screen's vertical resolution), I don't think going back to the classic listview really cuts it.
We're planning to drop Gtk2 support with the next major release/version, then we'll also experiment with other widgets (namely gtklistbox). I'm thinking though that this could be handled somehow conditionally, i.e. depending on how many users you have on your system (the combobox works really nicely on a system with <5 users).
If you have creative ideas how to handle this problem, we're happy to hear them :)