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Proposal for changing a bit the Toolbar

Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2016 3:45 pm
by Mag
I tried to redesign a bit the LiveCode's toolbar to see how it could be if it was designed in a more contemporary style... tell me what you think (also criticism and condemnations are welcome)...
LiveCodeBar14.jpg
Edit: in the first version I posted, there was a proposal to drop plain/bold text switching from the icon titles. After a comment by AxWald I restored that usability clue in some icons.

Re: Toolbar redesigned

Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2016 5:21 pm
by AxWald
Hi,
for me it looks a lot better!

Just one point: "The text no more switches between plain and bold ..."

Is there another way to see what's selected and what not, for the few of us that instantly switch off "cute little pictures in the menu bar" and enjoy more precious free screen estate?
A darker backcolor maybe? A border? Something alike?

Good job else! Have fun!

Re: Toolbar redesigned

Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2016 5:24 pm
by Mag
AxWald wrote:Hi,
for me it looks a lot better!

Just one point: "The text no more switches between plain and bold ..."

Is there another way to see what's selected and what not, for the few of us that instantly switch off "cute little pictures in the menu bar" and enjoy more precious free screen estate?
A darker backcolor maybe? A border? Something alike?

Good job else! Have fun!
Hi AxWald, you're right, sorry, I had not thought of that... :oops: the text in bold (or maybe a colored text) continues to be the better way I think...

Edit: based on your comment I restored the plain/bold on icon titles in some icons of the image, thank you.

Re: Proposal for changing a bit the Toolbar

Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2016 8:50 pm
by jacque
"Group selection" implies that the button will group all selected objects, just like the "group" command. I think better labels would be "Select groups" and "Select objects". But I don't have any problem with the current label, which represents the actual LC command "selectGroupedControls".

When I think of "References" I think of books. I'm not sure how people are related to that.

Re: Proposal for changing a bit the Toolbar

Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2016 2:20 pm
by Mag
Thank you Jacqueline, very helpful comments, I changed the image as your input.

Re: Proposal for changing a bit the Toolbar

Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2016 4:11 pm
by jacque
It looks pretty good to me now. Are you going to submit it to LC?

Re: Proposal for changing a bit the Toolbar

Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2016 5:27 pm
by Mag
jacque wrote:It looks pretty good to me now. Are you going to submit it to LC?
Thank you Jacqueline. If there are no other comments or proposals for changes, I'd do it, do you know the steps to send it?

Re: Proposal for changing a bit the Toolbar

Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2016 6:40 pm
by jacque
I'm not sure how you'd submit it, but I assume you'd have to generate a pull request on git. Maybe someone who knows more about git can answer.

Re: Proposal for changing a bit the Toolbar

Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2016 11:02 pm
by Mag
Thank you for the tip, I will investigate how to do it.

PS
I posted a proposal for some changes in the Tool Palette too, unfortunately I posted it in the wrong forum http://forums.livecode.com/viewtopic.ph ... 86#p147586 :roll:

Re: Proposal for changing a bit the Toolbar

Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2016 7:16 pm
by AxWald
Hi Mag,

"bold" might not be the most aesthetically pleasing option. Isn't there another way? A slightly darker background? A border? Don't know.

Besides this, in some way, the items in the toolbar aren't coherent anyways:
(Using 9.0 dp1 for example)
  1. Inspector, Code, Sample Stacks, Resources and Dictionary open a new interface element.
  2. Message Box toggles an interface element.
  3. Tutorial starts an external browser with a given URL.
  4. Group and Edit Group perform IDE actions.
  5. Select grouped, Messages and Errors are toggling IDE settings.
Nonetheless they are all mixed together.

Wouldn't the Group things, Message & Errors be better fitting in the tools palette? Then the screen estate fanatics could hide the toolbar altogether ;-)

I see you're working on the tools palette, too. And this one, too, already became large and clumsy. Maybe it's time to discuss the whole system, maybe there'd be a better solution?

Just an idea: Breaking up the tool palette into smaller sub-palettes - Widgets, Interface items, Groups, Graphics, Paints, maybe even Text Options and Text macros. *1)
These would be "magnetic" to each other and remember their place on the screen.
And you would invoke them on the fly via a new toolbar, or a keyboard shortcut.

As mentioned, just a raw idea. But as you're at it already, maybe a bit of "interface cleanup" would make sense. Richard already started something similar afaik.

Have fun!

*1) "Text macros": Imagine a small palette where you can store, behind a tiny icon, text snippets like this:

Code: Select all

 " & MyVar & " 
or

Code: Select all

answer XX "XX" with "XX" or "XX" titled "XX" [CR] if it is "XX" then [CR] XX [CR] else [CR] XX [CR] end if
and insert them at the cursor with the click of a mouse? ([CR] should insert a return ...)
No more need to use AutoHotKey ...

Re: Proposal for changing a bit the Toolbar

Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2016 8:23 pm
by ClintMA
The menu bar could be simplified and shortened by putting the "Sample Stacks", "Tutorials", and "Resources" into a drop-down menu under a "Help" menu title.

Re: Proposal for changing a bit the Toolbar

Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2016 8:40 pm
by jacque
Wouldn't the Group things, Message & Errors be better fitting in the tools palette?
I don't think so. The Tools palette only contains tools that create or modify objects. Grouping, displaying the message box, and activating error messages are not tools, they are actions. I use these very frequently and having them in the top bar is convenient.

Re: Proposal for changing a bit the Toolbar

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 9:34 am
by AxWald
Jacque,

I see your point. My idea was to have those in the tools bar that open or close windows, and all other in the tool palette. Btw.:
jacque wrote:[...] displaying the message box [...]
I meant the toggle for "suppress messages".

Guess it would be hard to code a solution that would fit all of us - too different the expectations!

Have fun!

Re: Proposal for changing a bit the Toolbar

Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2016 4:38 pm
by richmond62
That's really lovely.

Are you going to release a patcher stack?