Improving the KDevelop UI

[Alexander Dymo]

It seems that you're using KDevelop 3.0.x, right? Because modern KDevelop 
already has solutions to some problems you mentioned. I will point that
out in comments.

On Friday 15 April 2005 08:15, Lasse Kärkkäinen / Tronic wrote:
> Major problems:
> - Too many buttons everywhere (UI clutter)
>    * Hard to fit them on screen
>    * The application feels difficult to use
> - Too many icons to remember, no text on buttons
>    * Not possible to add text because the buttons would not fit anywhere
You can choose between icon / text+icon / text modes. In "text only" mode
buttons fit on 1024*768 screen. In KDevelop 3.2 there's a "simple ideal"
mode which uses slightly smaller buttons and text on those buttons can
be shrinked if the window is too small so that buttons will not occupy two
rows on the screen.

> - Right vertical tab bar is almost empty
>    * The main reason for the existence of this bar seems to be that there
> is
>      not enough space in the bottom one
No, some views are docked to the right because in typical workflow you'd
want to have several views opened at the same time. Most common case
is when you have "project manager" view on the right and "class view"
or "file selector" on the left.

> - Vertical tab bars are difficult to use
>    * Tab title text is not displayed
It is displayed by default from KDevelop 3.1.
>    * Setting it to display the title (of the selected tab) makes the
>      situation even worse
Can't agree. The text is readable. What is the prob?

> - UI is very dynamic (panels pop in and out all the time)
>    * Confusing and possibly annoying
This has changed since 3.0.x. Now no actions lower views and only
build actions raise bottom messages or similar views.
In KDevelop 3.2 in "simple ideal" mode views can't slide automatically.

> The bottom bar currently includes own "tab" for every possible tool. There
> is one for grep, one for CVS, one for SVN, etc. There's even a Konsole
> window down there. Clearly many of these actually share their purpose. For
> example, tabs that are basically terminal windows - compile logs, gdb, the
> application running, ... - could mostly be combined into a single shared
> tab. Further reduction of clutter can be accomplished by:

> - Using dialogs for functions instead of the tab panels
>    * Useful for SVN/CVS commits, etc.
VCS plugins should probably just use messages window.

> - Using temporary tab panels that appear only when the function is active
>    * Useful for Search & Replace
Agree.

> - Using temporary tab panels that appear when the function is activated,
> and that are soon after closed by the user
>    * Useful for grep
Agree. While I personally wouldn't want to close that tab ever.

> Konsole tab should not be required. It is clearly a separate application,
> so the user may run a real Konsole, should he need one. Maybe add a
> "Terminal"-button in the menus or the top toolbars, if this seems like an
> important function (to open it in project directory).
Disagree, embedded terminal emulator is pretty useful and it exist in most
IDEs as well.

> UI mode switch to reduce clutter. Many things are only needed when the app
> is running in debugger and serve no purpose otherwise. Similarly, when it
> is debugged, one cannot modify or rebuild it, etc, making some functions
> unavailable. This clearly calls for two separate modes. There could be use
> for other modes too, even now, or in the future.
As from KDevelop 3.1 debugger views will appear only while the debugger
is executing.

> Left vertical tab bar contains some functions that really belong to the
> file menu and optionally to the top toolbar. 
> New file and file selector  panels are such functions. 
IIRC new file view is disabled by default now  and the corresponding
functionality is available from the toolbar.

> Project file browsers could be combined into a 
> single panel where one can choose whether to browse by file type, or by
> tree. 
I'd opt a complete redesign of file viewers. But that's probably for
KDevelop4. But please note, you can disable some file viewers
in KDevelop settings (they are just plugins that you can unload).

> Bookmarks panel is something that I do not understand at all (what is 
> the purpose of this thing?). 
Try to add bookmarks to several files in the project and you will see.
Also point at the bookmark and observe a nice tooltip ;)

> Watches is not related to project browsing, so 
> it should go where the rest of the debugging stuff go.
Didn't we move watch window to the bottom?... I have to check.

> The class browser toolbar in the top does what the class browser (tree) on
> the left toolbar should be doing, and as such, should probably be removed
> in favor of the tree view.
It was removed in 3.1 and replaced by function selector which shows current
function under the cursor.

-- 
Alexander Dymo
ICST Department, National University of Shipbuilding, Mykolayiv, Ukraine