toolbar icons

[Andreas Pakulat]

On 09.08.09 17:33:33, David Nolden wrote:
> Am Sonntag 09 August 2009 17:05:52 schrieb Andreas Pakulat:
> > On 1024x768 you don't have that much choice anyway. Its just a pretty
> > small screen to put that many ui elements into one single line.
> >
> > > Am I really the only one who thinks that the screenshots you've sent are
> > > ugly?
> >
> > I actually like them, yes.
> To be honest, part of the uglyness I see in the screenshots might come from 
> the fact that you don't have tabs,

Well, those are currently rather useless due to bugs in the
document-opening/switching code, so no point in even trying to use them
:)

> and have a huge font.
 
? This is standard 8pt everywhere, except the titlebar. I don't know
about you, but I already wear pretty thick glasses and I'd like to avoid
my eyes getting even worse. In fact, my whole family can hardly read on
my machines without getting pretty close to the monitor. I think the
default size on usual desktops is 10pt even. (I'm Using DejaVu Sans
btw). 

> > > Do you really think that is a good user interface for an IDE?
> >
> > On such a small screen: Yes.
> Well on a small screen the space is even more valuable.

I meant that for such a small screen size its a rather good UI.

> > > Apart from the
> > > wasted space, it looks cluttered due to the text and the large vertical
> > > size of the toolbar.
> >
> > No, it actually adds some whitespace so it doesn't look cluttered and as
> > if we've tried to cramp as many things into as little space as possible.
> We probably have different definitions of clutter. To me, clutter means that 
> the optical structure is incomprehensive and not following a clear pattern. 
> And that's what I feel when I see those 2-line icons beside the 1-line line-
> edits and panel.

Thats easy to fix, provide proper text for those 3 buttons :P
I actually agree that this discrepancy make the 3 small buttons look out
of place. I'm too lazy right now to try to see how it looks with "Next",
"Previous", "Browse" text beneath them.

In general clutter for me means having too many interactive ui-elements
in too little space, leaving (almost) no whitespace between them. Have a
look at this screenshot:
http://linux.softpedia.com/screenshots/eric4_1.jpg

Thats what I call a totally cluttered toolbar and in the default setup
the toolbars from the left side are actually also on the top. 

This is something that won't happen easily with text-under-icons,
because there's larger icons then and less space for more icons. Sure
adding every useless icon to the toolbar is more a problem of the
developer not thinking about whats useful, but this gives a small
technical way of enforcing him to do that.

> > Also I'd like to add that we can actually reduce the text of most
> > actions in the toolbar to a single word. Which means we'll have more
> > space without removing the text and without having the more-verbose text
> > in the menu, simply set iconText on the action. That will then be used
> > in toolbars. There's for example no reason for the word "Launch" in the
> > run/debug actions. Just "Run" and "Debug" would be enough and then we
> > can instantly fit 1-2 more icons or have more space for the lineedits.
> Yes that might at least reduce the horizontal-space problem with text-under-
> icons.

Ok, I'll try to post a new screenshot with that.
 
> > BTW: One other thing that those small buttons make harder: Actually
> > hitting it, thats one of the main reasons (apart from not being able to
> > memorize the icons) why I still have text-under-icons here.  I simply
> > don't mind the extra pixels taken by it because I find them to be useful
> >
> > > You see the whole function you're in, and you have the maximum amount of
> > > vertical space available in the editor, both of which increase
> > > productivity.
> >
> > Seriously, I don't need the latter, that one additional line in the
> > editor IMHO doesn't justify the problems you create for part of our
> > userbase regarding the toolbar buttons. Unless you've got 2 monitors,
> > rotated with 1900x1200 resolution, on top of each other you'll always
> > have code where you cannot fit a whole function into one editor-page.
> It is significant if you only have 25 lines overall, like maybe on a small 
> screen, to cover the newbie-side.

Hmm, at 700 pixel, no bottom toolview I have 30.

> And as a power-user, me personally I also want that space, as I want
> maximum overview, and could eventually use the space to do a vertical
> split-view if I've got too much of it.

I wouldn't ever consider a vertical split as my usual screen sizes
rather suggest a horizontal split and then I still have 30 lines.
Anyway, on small screens splitting is not an option anyway, wether you
have 25, 30, or 33 lines.

And regarding "keeping the overview", I rather like to jump around code
and see only the couple of lines I currently work on. Sometimes, when
moving code around I'd like to have more vertical space to be able to
see source and destination at the same time, but so far most of the time
even 10 more pixel wouldn't have helped (I'd need about at least one
more page-height visible).
 
> > > I'm not convinced yet, I would like to hear some more opinions.
> >
> > And neither am I about your suggestion.
> >
> > > If the majority reall perfers the with-text version, I will be fine.
> >
> > So you want to do a poll?
> 
> No just hear some more opinions. Since we're talking about default settings 
> here, I think it is important to combine the preferences of many, instead of 
> just you and me.

Well, obviously our preferences are not possible to combine :)

> Unfortunately most don't seem to be interested in this discussion, probably 
> because you can just change the settings. But defaults are important, as they 
> make up the first impression, and you never get a second change for a first 
> impression.

Hence the idea of a poll/survey/... because compared to us developers I
think the people trying out kdevelop are rather interested in such a
discussion - or at least giving their opinion.

Andreas

-- 
You're ugly and your mother dresses you funny.