[kde-guidelines] Styleguide: Toolbar

[Heiko Tietze]

On Thursday 03 October 2013 18:10:26 Thomas Pfeiffer wrote:
> On Thursday 03 October 2013 16:02:50 David Edmundson wrote:
>> * Avoid using menu-, split-, and toggle
>What's a split button?
A button with a default action and a separate area/option to select the action 
from a menu. Definition can be found at 
http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Usability/HIG/Buttons

> > > ===  Appearance ===
> > > * By default, represent tool bar buttons with icons only: Visual design
> > > should stay for itself. But consider to show captions as well in case of
> > > unusual functions or if users configure it.
> > This could be just:
> > Do not change the QToolbar::toolButtonStyle from the default.
> > Also this is not the default currently. The default is text beside icons.
> > 
> > If this spec doesn't match what goes into Oxygen, we'll have two
> > conflicting rules.
> > People will take this as just "someone's vision on what KDE should be
> > like" and not an agreed upon specification. If that happens this all
> > becomes wasted, which we don't want.
> 
> Agreed: Developers should just use the default. If we think the default
> isn't good, we should make sure the default is changed instead of asking
> every developer to change the default.
You are right. All visual stuff should go into the last part of the HIG. BTW: 
Is there another Oxygen guideline than this one /Projects/Oxygen/Style?

* Do not change the button style (QToolbar::toolButtonStyle) from the default. 
The default is currently text beside icons.

> > > * Use small icons in standard applications and larger icons for tool
> > > windows.
> > 
> > Do we do this?
> > With my programmer hat on, again this should be left up to the QStyle
> > and left alone by developers. The HIG will then be "don't change the
> > icon sizes"
I would encourage to do so. Again, the 'don't change things' advice fits well. 
I removed the point completely.

> First of all: What exactly are tool windows?
Forms have a border style that distinguish between normal applications and 
tools. A tool window usually do not allow resizing, does not provide 
minimize/maximize buttons at the (smaller) system area (at least on MS 
Windows), and does not have a status bar. It is useful for applications that 
behaves like secondary windows, e.g. kcalc. All secondary dialogs, at least 
when modal, are tool windows.