Yes I totally agree, and allowing for multiple, resizable forms to
handle any concurrent needs allows the user to move them to whatever monitor
they may want if they have more than one. But what I'm after is how we can
best design for all three scenarios, a single standard aspect monitor, a
wide aspect monitor, and multiple monitors of either type.
I think it's too dam easy, and even negligent of us to simply design
our layouts for the one monitor scenario and let the user adjust it to suite
his or her needs because doing so may or may not necessarily be best.
Case in point: Delphi or BDS 2006 itself! On a standard aspect
monitor I would set my editing desktop up so that it used the embedded
design layout, with my structure and tools panels docked to the left side,
and set to auto hide, ( unpinned ). On the right side I would dock my
project manager, my class view, and my templates, and within it so as to
take up the bottom half of the right side, my object inspector so that it is
always in view. At the bottom would be docked my message view, and it's
also where events and other debugging windows might show up automatically as
needed. This worked fairly well for me except that having the object
inspector set to a height less than half the height of the monitor made it
necessary to do a lot more scrolling! But at the same time were I to
simply dock it at it's full height along with the project manager and
others, then I would be forced to constantly have to continue clicking a tab
or shortcut key to bring it to the surface all the time! And if I unpinned
the right side as I do on the left, then the OI would constantly be
disappearing when I need it! This is already a problem with my toolbox, but
as I don't spend nearly as much time there it's a concession I'm able to
make.
Now on a wide aspect monitor I've changed this setup so that the
right side set of panels, including the Object inspector are NOT docked at
all! I get the same amount of editor space as I did before, and panels I
need constantly stay in view all the time. If I were to dock them on the
right side as well, then their height would only be to the top of the editor
because Borland does not allow you to dock outside edge to outside edge! So
here's a good way to make the Delphi interface better and more compatible
with the wide aspect monitor while at the same time not inflicting a penalty
on the standard aspect user! Allow the panels to be docked either as part
of the editor as it is now, or as part of the entire form! Why does it have
to be docked at all you might ask? Because when not docked as I use it with
my wide aspect monitor it doesn't always minimize along with the rest of the
application when I need to get it off screen for awhile. And when it does,
it very often does not restore correctly thus forcing me to reset my desktop
again!
This was a simple example of what I'm talking about and I hope I
explained it well enough to get my thoughts across properly, but there are
many different opportunities that we can take advantage of in the design of
our interfaces depending on the aspect of the monitor in use, the overall
resolution, and / or the number of monitors being used. And if we do a bit
of thinking we can find ways to add these opportunities to our designs so
that the user has more control and better options under each setup.
from Robert Meek dba Tangentals Design
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Cosmin Prund
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 11:20 AM
To: 'Delphi-Talk Discussion List'
Subject: RE: Interface design
About application design in a multi-monitor scenario, my idea:
Unless the application needs to present high volumes of information at the
same time I think it's best to design for only one monitor (baring in mind
the monitor you're designing for might be the 2nd or 3rd, not the 1st).
Designing applications with only this simple gole in mind is fairly easy and
will serve the dual-monitor user while not confusing the single-monitor
user.
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