Re: removing non-working things

[Ritesh Khadgaray <khadgaray gmail com>]

On Sun, 2006-07-30 at 21:38 +0100, Alan Horkan wrote:
> On Sun, 30 Jul 2006, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> 
> > Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 14:47:39 -0400
> > From: Matthias Clasen <mclasen redhat com>
> > To: desktop-devel-list gnome org
> > Subject: removing non-working things
> >
> > The gnome-ui-properties capplet contains a "Detachable toolbars"
> > checkbox, which has three issues:
> >
> > a) It only affects BonoboToolbars, not for regular GtkToolbars
> 
On a side-note
With gedit 2.8, this feature works ( with the stated bug)
With gedit 2.17 ( rawhide ) detach toolbar option  has no effect.

> Erm are you sure?
> 
> A Gtk Toolbar has to put inside a container to make it detachable which
> many developers dont or wont do.  (Forgive me for not being able to put
> into more techincal terms, I know this from experimenting with various
> mockups in Glade rather than coding it myself where I'd need to learn the
> correct terminology.)
> 
> I'm still hoping Gtk will have a future toolbar which will be dockable and
> detachable and everything but not hoping very much.  There are cases like
> Eog where I'd like to be able to move/put the toolbar vertically when
> going through a set of largely tall portraite images.  (Same goes for
> gthumb, more so because it wastes a horrific amount of vertical space with
> a second title bar.)

> I went through a stage of asking various programs to do so and be more
> consistent but programs such as Evince politely declined to do so, which
> isn't unreasonable and quite understandable because detachable toolbars in
> Gtk aren't much use (not to say some future toolbar setup couldn't make
> them more useful).
> 
> > b) It does not even work correctly for bonobo toolbars (try
> >    detaching and reattaching the evolution toolbar, for instance)
> 
> I agree reattaching toolbars can be quite finnickey
> there was some trick like holding down Ctrl or something which made it
> easier to reattach things (possibly related to the window manager move
> window option).
> 
> It would be nice if non-working thing could be fixed.
> 
> > c) Even if it worked correctly everywhere, it is not a very
> >    useful feature.
> 
> Unfortunately that is quite true, even worse I've seen users (of non GTK
> applications with more complicated toolbars) manage to lose toolbars or
> accidentally hide things and be left wondering where they went.  (The
> users didn't understand the little overflow arrows indicating hidden
> items.)  Toolbars should not be detachable by default.
> 
> Do the Gtk developers even have plans to overhaul the Toolbars into
> something more advanced later?  Is it low on the list of priorities or is
> it on the list at all?
> 
> Toolbars are admittedly not much use at the moment but they are not beyond
> hope and could probably still be improved.
> 
> > So I'd like to propose that we drop this checkbox.

Sounds good. How about a option to hide toolbar itself ?
I rarely use them, and rely on keyboard shortcuts for most parts.
( ps : i hate using mouse , or it could be just me )

The only place where i use them is, Openoffice.

> 
> When I went through my phase of trying to get developers to implement it
> consistently I met a lot of polite resistance.  I came to the conclusion
> that it might be best to set all toolbars to Locked/Not detachable by
> default to at least make things consistent.
> 
> Applications which wanted to allow users to rearrange the toolbars could
> unlock them/make them detachable if and only if the user chose something
> like "customize toolbars" or "unlock toolbars" which might also included
> other functionality such as drag and drop of toolbar items.
> 
> > If there is a need to fill the void, we could add a "Show icons in
> > buttons" checkbox instead, since this is a feature that works reliably
> > everywhere...
> 
> Does it?  Maybe it is no longer a problem anymore but a long time ago when
> developers were experimenting with "show icons on buttons" things didn't
> work out well for buttons with only an icon and no text label.
> 

With windows, i found explorer style toolbar friendlier.
All toolbar buttons are in grayscale, 
and coloured+highlighted when cursor is place over them
greyed out toolbar options have outline of icon ( sort of chrome looks )

> Applications which had used a row of buttons without text instead of a
> proper toolbar ended up with blank useless buttons. It seems some
> developers do not want flat toolbars and instead want their toolbar to
> look more 3 Dimensional and button-like, which would be a theme issue not
> a widget issue. (Winzip used to have an option to change the toolbar
> button style.)
> 
> Sincerely
> 
> Alan Horkan
> http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/
> 
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-- 
Ritesh Khadgaray
LinuX N Stuff
Ph: +919822394463
Eat Right, Exercise, Die Anyway.