On Aug 27, 2012, at 12:08 AM, Anna Kratochvílová wrote:
> Hi Michael, > > I hope you don't mind adding this discussion to mailing list. No problem if you are OK with it. > > On Mon, Aug 27, 2012 at 12:15 AM, Michael Barton <[email protected]> > wrote: >> These look nice. I will try to test late in the week when I have time to >> recompile. >> >> A couple thoughts. >> >> Multiple options like this give users more flexibility for customizing the >> look of the program. And if it solves the hidden tab problem, that can be a >> benefit to use. On the other hand, adding too many options adds more >> complexity to an already very very complex GUI code, with more opportunities >> for something to go wrong. > > Once the initial bugs are fixed (I hope there are not many) the code > should be quite stable because all notebooks have very similar or > identical API so in the code you just switch classes representing > the notebook styles and that's all. That's good to hear. With probably >100K lines of code in the GUI (a guess that may way under count), I get worried about this. > >> >> The other thing to think about is that there is an advantage to having a >> consistent GRASS brand and look across all platforms. That was the idea >> behind the gradient green bar behind the tabs. (I forget who first suggested >> flatnotebook, but I liked them because they were distinctive and not as >> 'boring' as the normal rectangular ones that are on almost all other apps). >> Perhaps there are better ways of switching pages than flatnotebook style. >> Having the tabs go down the left may be better for example, though it makes >> dialogs wider and hence eats up more screen real estate. Anyway, after some >> experimentation, even if switching to a new tab style there is some benefit >> to settling on a standard style that is the GRASS brand. > >> Can flatnotebook do tabs on the left? > > I'am afraid that it is not possible. > > The point is to let the user choose what he wants. The current tabs > don't look boring but I'm sure a lot of people would prefer standard > 'boring' notebook. And still there is the issue with the hidden tabs > which can be very confusing for not experienced user. Another question > is which style should be the default one, if the nice but little > confusing or the standard one? Exactly. While we might want to keep the choices, we ought to have a default one that says 'GRASS' in its design somehow, but at the same time is not so baroque that it is not easy to use. > > Thanks for comments, Certainly. I and many others very much appreciate your and Martin's continued work on the GUI. Michael ____________________ C. Michael Barton Director, Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity Professor of Anthropology, School of Human Evolution & Social Change Arizona State University voice: 480-965-6262 (SHESC), 480-727-9746 (CSDC) fax: 480-965-7671 (SHESC), 480-727-0709 (CSDC) www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton, http://csdc.asu.edu _______________________________________________ grass-dev mailing list [email protected] http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
