GTK Toolbars

["Erick Woods" <erick ljm net>]

Right off...  I have posted this to gtk-list and was told that it is not a
gtk thing, but a WM thing.  I posted to a couple GNOME lists and got no
answers.  Havoc says it is a gtk-devel issue, so here goes...  :-)

I look at the toolbars in GNOME and they drive me crazy.  They take up way
too much space.  If you
compare spacing with Windows, it is really bad.  I use GNOME exclusively on
my laptop.  I have limited screen space.  Every app uses way too much for
toolbars that I like to have.  I have made an image comparing Word against
Abiword to demonstrate this.  It can be found at:

http://www.erick.com/gtb.png

My point is not about the text adding to the size (although that is rather
obnoxious, too), but the overall size of a button on a toolbar and the
height if the toolbar in question.  Reviewing the picture I created shows
that a standard text toolbar (file, edit, etc...) is 23 pixels high in
Windows and 26 pixels in height in GNOME.  A graphical button toobar using
small images in windows is 26 pixels high in Windows and 34 pixels in GNOME.
Now, looking at the GNOME toolbar, there is a lot of wasted space on all
sides of the image.  It is very obvious that Windows makes better use and is
more efficient with screen real estate in this regard.  Add that together in
GNOME and you have used 19 more pixels for Abiword's 3 standard toolbars
than the equivalent toolbars in Word/Windows.  This is what I have a problem
with. Is there a reason for this?  As you can see the difference is a total
of 19 pixels for 3 similar toolbars.  That may not be many, but it is when
screen real estate is limited.  Just a lot of undesirable white space, IMHO.
If you go through Windows apps and compare the toolbars, they will almost
invariably be nicer and take less space.  I am not big on Windows, but
Microsoft has done a lot of research and done a lot of stuff right with the
GUI...  My $0.02...

Thanks!

Erick