[PATCH] "Show only important text" mode for toolbars

[Ian Reinhart Geiser]

Peter Rockai (mornfall) said:
> Hello!
>
> I spoke with Aaron yesterday on IRC about toolbar plans for 3.4 and I
> asked
> what about the text-alongside-icons mode and overly long texts. He
> suggested
> adding a flag like textImportant to the actions and a checkbox (and
> toolbar
> context menu item) to show/hide "unimportant" texts. This is an initial
> implementation, sticking the "text important" flag to KAction. It should
> be
> fairly complete, with toolbar configuration handling and everything. I'd
> be
> happy if someone could review the patch. I have done some amount of
> testing
> with various apps, but i'm not 100% of it (given it's past 4 am already).
> Also, i'm not sure if the result of IconTextBottom mode and KToolBar's
> iconTextImportant flag being both in effect at the same time is optimal.
Yeah as much as I love to mindlessly rip off winders features I really
really really DO NOT want this one.

It introduces:
a) a more complicated and cluttered UI
b) who makes the choice of what's important?
   -dynamicly setting this as most used actions changes the UI
    something even MS realized was asininely wrong and removed it
    in XP.
   -programmers rarely make the correct HCI decisions.
   -a usability test could give us remotely close results, but
    we would be at the mercy of a test group, and stand to do
    more harm than good when we confuse,piss off normal users.
c) introduces complexity for developers so they have the opportunity
   to make more mistakes with the UI than we already do.
d) avoids solving the real problem of cluttered toolbars with unclear
   icons.  I think Ben Mayer understands this better than most in KDE.
   Take a look at KAudio creator with text under icons mode and a large
   toolbar.  (Too bad we cant make that a default mode)  See how clean
   it is?  I have attached some screenshots of apps in this mode with
   simplified toolbars.

    http://www.geiseri.com/pics/kaudiocreator.png
    http://www.geiseri.com/pics/kwrite.png

So in summary:
   Lets solve the real problem and simplify toolbars, and make them less
   cluttered and clarify the icons.


Cheers
   -ian reinhart geiser

--
--
+-Ian Reinhart Geiser geiseri at sourcextreme.com
+-Vice President of Engineering
+-http://www.sourcextreme.com
+-It's not that we don't make mistakes, we just don't keep them around.