Re: GtkTreeView column-chooser dialog

[Mike Kestner <mkestner speakeasy net>]

On Thu, 2003-03-06 at 21:37, Ettore Perazzoli wrote:

> > What if the feature were done with right-click menus on the column
> > headers?
> > 
> >    Move Left
> >    Move Right
> >    Insert Column ->
> >          Column Not Currently Showing 1
> >          Column Not Currently Showing 2
> >    Sort Ascending
> >    Sort Descending
> 
> Nah, way too clunky.  It might be accessible, but it's annoying and
> difficult to use.  Drag and drop is much more intuitive; it "just
> works".

I agree that the "Move" and "Sort" items don't belong when click-to-sort
and drag reordering are well established behavior for column headings. A
dialog to insert new columns has always felt heavy to me, though.  I
like the idea of a context menu Insert Column submenu.  Another
possibility is a column header "button" inserted after the last column
header with a drop-down list if additional columns are available,
although that might suck if you have a really busy space-starved table.

> > This brings up the issue (again) of an API for saving transient state.
> > You really kind of need one to make this convenient to use.
> 
> Yes.  And it should probably save both the columns and their size (which
> is what we do in Evolution).

Without this capability, I don't think it's even worth implementing user
customization in TreeView. The UI is the easy part.  Making sure it
looks the same way next time the view is loaded is the chunky part.

-- 
Mike Kestner <mkestner speakeasy net>