Re: [Usability]A Tale of a Toolbar editor

[Chipzz <chipzz ULYSSIS Org>]

On 17 Mar 2003, Biswapesh Chattopadhyay wrote:

> From: Biswapesh Chattopadhyay <biswapesh_chatterjee tcscal co in>
> Subject: Re: [Usability]A Tale of a Toolbar editor
>
> We would really love to have toolbar editing implmented by default in
> EggToolbar (we'd like menu and shortcut editing to be implemented as
> well and integrate well with the toolbar editor, but that's another
> thing). Just a couple of point I feel are relevant from Anjuta's POV:
>
> 1. Handling multiple toolbars gracefully is a must, since we have lots
> of toolbars which show and hide themselves frequently depending on the
> IDE run context. I'm sure other complex apps like Abiword, etc. will
> need it too.
>
> 2. There should be a way to set the display style for each toolbar
> (Text, Icon, Both Horizontal, Both Vertical, Priority Horizontal).
> Gustavo implemented most of this at a toolbar level for BonoboUI and I
> really like the way it works. Here's a screenie:
> 	http://sourcebase.sourceforge.net/anjuta2-toolbars.png
> [ Note that this complements the Epiphany toolbar editor ]

This is the one thing I absolutely _hate_ about anjuta2 (I think it's a
really cool app for the rest): I just told gnome via the control-center
I do _not_ want priority text on my toolbars. So why should anjuta (or
any app using libbonoboui for that matter) try to outsmart me and use a
different setting. Same thing goes for evolution, which is worse in that
regard that I can't even turn the priority text off. I'm on a 800x600
display and it is just clutter.
I think we should have 5 options instead of 4, with the fifth option
(which should _always, no matter what,_ be the default) using the gnome
default. Optionally a 6th option which is to use the apps default (but
this is starting to sound like crack :).

> 3. We'd like toolbar customization to be in the toolbar context menu -
> somehow makes more sense that way IMHO. But it should also be standalone
> function and preferably some widget so that we can embed it in our
> preferences dialog. It would be nice to right-click on a toolbar/menu
> to customize it.

And how would you save your toolbar settings? I'ld suggest in a glade
file, but this pulls in a libglade dependency in Gtk+ which for obvious
reasons is crack :). This is why I think toolbar editing belongs some-
where else, like in a *grin* BonoboToolbar? ;P

> 4. There should be graceful handling of the situation where there's an
> large number of toolbar items. I feel the Epiphany style is OK for a
> small number of items, but it might be pretty unweildy for a large
> number of tool items (say, 100 or so). Besides, D&D for customization is
> pretty overrated IMO. It migtht make a cool GUI gimmick but makes life
> difficult for users of more complicated apps like office suites and
> IDEs. It is also difficult to make it a11y friendly I think. I
> personally think the OpenOffice 'Tools->Configure' thing is pretty cool
> since it brings menu editing, toolbar and toolbar item customization,
> keyboard shortcuts and user-defined event macros under one consistent
> GUI. Here're the screenies:
> 	http://sourcebase.sf.net/oo-eventeditor.png
> 	http://sourcebase.sf.net/oo-keyeditor.png
> 	http://sourcebase.sf.net/oo-menueditor.png
> 	http://sourcebase.sf.net/oo-statuseditor.png
> 	http://sourcebase.sf.net/oo-tooleditor.png

This sounds like (is it bonobo?) verbs.

I think for the reasons above toolbar editing should not be in Gtk+, and
there is still a place for either a Gnome- or BonoboToolbar, which would
be radically different from the curent ones thou.

> Hope this helps.
>
> Rgds,
> Biswa.

On a final note, although I'm really excited by the cleanup that Gtk+2.4
will be, I think it's clear we cannot pull all the required functionality
in Gtk+. But, one thing that I really want to point out is, libbonoboui
is _not_ portable. It requires a GtkSocket/GtkPlug, which are X specific.
Which makes code using libbonoboui, and consequently all libraries de-
pending on it, also unportable to the framebuffer and to windows.
Which brings me to conclude that maybe we should introduce a new library
below libbonoboui but above Gtk+/libglade.

Kind regards,

Chipzz AKA
Jan Van Buggenhout
-- 

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                 UNIX isn't dead - It just smells funny
                           Chipzz ULYSSIS Org
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