Re: GEP 6: Toolbar

[James Henstridge <james daa com au>]

Daniel Egger wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 17, 2002 at 08:40:48AM +0800, James Henstridge wrote:
>  
>
> > Problem with this is that GTK+ doesn't handle the height-for-width style 
> > geometry management (ie. make the widget taller as you reduce its width, 
> > or vice versa).
> >    
>
> Can a toolbar receive sizing events? If so it should be possible to
> recalc the needed size and reformat the toolbar accordingly.
This doesn't work very well.  With the GTK geometry management system, 
there is the size_request phase where each widget gives its requested 
size (containers basing their requisition on how much space their 
children require).  Then the size_allocate phase occurs where all the 
widgets get an ammount of space allocated to them (containers allocate 
space to their children based on how much space they were allocated).

If you try to change you size during size_allocate, or base the 
requested size based on your previous allocated size, you will get weird 
results (you might end up with an app window that can only grow larger, 
or screwed up layout.  It just doesn't work properly with GTK+ (and many 
other toolkits).

> > On this particular issue, I think there is value in providing a UI that 
> > is consistent with what Windows, OS X and Qt do.
> >    
>
> I don't believe in the "others do it this way so it must be great" philosophy.
> In MacOSX it's not a good feature either but generally no problem because
> most toolbars can be customized. However this *is* a problem with GNOME right
> now because almost none can; ever tried a German ggv? There are not many 
> screen which will fit some localized applications.
>  
I was saying that menu style overflow must be good because the other 
toolkits do it; I was saying confusion/hassle to users of GTK+ apps 
acting differently to other familiar systems probably outweighs the 
possible of doing it differently.

As far as the case of German menu items, there are a number of ways to 
fix this including:

  1. change the translation to use shorter toolbar labels
  2. use a different toolbar style, such as "icons only", or the
     proposed "priority text" style.


James.

--
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