Dialogs reorganization

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Revision as of 15:45, 25 July 2006 by Colin Marquardt (talk | contribs) (+Cat)
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Currently there are too many dialogs, they are confusingly named, and their functions overlap. We must reduce the number of dialogs to a manageable amount and reorganize them. Here's my plan:


Detachable toolbars in the document window

  • (DONE) Toolbox: becomes a docked (but detachable) toolbar with only the several tool buttons (and not the entire roll as before).
  • SecondaryToolbar: new, combines secondary buttons from the toolbox plus some other options and controls.

Floating dialogs

  • Fill and Stroke: stays mostly as is, with usability tweaks.
  • Text and Font: stays, but with changes as described on the TextUsability page.
  • (DONE) Size and Position: to be eliminated, its controls go to the SecondaryToolbar for Selector
  • Transformations: stays mostly as is, with usability tweaks and new features added.
  • Align and Distribute: stays mostly as is, with usability tweaks and new features added.
  • Item properties: to be eliminated, its controls are disposed of as follows:
    • ID field is redundant, there is the same functionality in XML editor
    • Sensitive, visible, active, printable toggles: IMHO these properties must be editable for layers, not for individual objects; if you absolutely must set them for an object, you can do so in XML editor. So leave them for now, but delete as soon as we have a Layers dialog.
    • Transparency: redundant, use Fill and Stroke instead
    • Transformation matrix: a useful thing, but it will be much more appropriate as a new tab on the Transformations dialog - move it there
  • XML editor: stays as is
  • Document settings: to be eliminated, its controls go to the new Document settuings (below)
  • Editing window: is renamed to Document settings. The content of the former "Document settings" go to its "Page" tab. All the options in this dialog must be saved with the document (into sodipodi:namedview).
  • Tool options: to be eliminated, its content goes either to Preferences (for Selector) or to the SecondaryToolbar (for other tools), with the exception of the "Defaults" buttons that must be removed.
  • Tool attributes: absolutely redundant, to be eliminated. (DONE removing from the menu, but the leftover code is to be eliminated also)
  • Display settings: is renamed to "Preferences" and massively expanded, see PreferencesDialog.
  • Layers: new, to be created when the layers are fully implemented.

Other things to be done in all dialogs:

  • Reduce size as much as possible. Smaller fonts, denser layout. Currently some dialogs are way too bulky.
  • More hotkeys! Most if not all widgets with text (buttons, tabs) must have one of the letters with an underscore so that alt-letter will jump there.
  • More tooltips!
  • Eliminate all Close buttons (redundant) and Apply buttons where it makes sense
  • Fix keybindings in widgets:
    • Ctrl-PgDn/Ctrl-PgUp in spinbuttons must not cause them to change value! These are for switching tabs.
    • Tab in text widgets must not insert tab char - it's for navigating widgets.