I think a having a docking interface and the NestedSplitter (Easter-egg splitter right click) interface is kind of redundant, they both do similar things with similar goals and having them co-exist long term probably doesn't make sense.
Vocab: Leo's log-pane is so called for historical reasons, it's a tab-pane containing log, spell, find, and other widgets, so I'll call it the tab-pane. The NestedSplitter interface lets you freely arrange all widgets (body, tree, log, spell, find, todo, quick-nav, graph, tags, anything else put in the tab-pane). Until the dock interface lets you do that, you'd lose functionality removing NestedSplitter. Allowing free arrangement of all widgets with docks is what I attempted to do, dock interface wise, but gave up. Basically I think the dock ui needs to let you arrange all widgets, not just the big three (tree / body / tab-pane). Currently I think what it's added over the NestedSplitter interface is more intuitive arrangement (mouse dragging! ;-) and different aesthetics. On aesthetics, if it doesn't already have one, the dock ui probably needs a toggle for display of the dock titles, seeing long term labeling the tree the tree etc. is a waste of screen space. You said > - A central widget allows the user to drag dock widgets to any area at any time. Without a central widget you can only drag a widget to an area that already contains a dock. Once an area becomes empty it can't be used! but I never found using only one area to be a constraint - all possible arrangements were still possible. My approach explicitly used only one area, and you can't pull the last dock out of a nest of docks, so there was never an empty window issue. Hopefully this new approach (using docking for just the big-three widgets initially) will allow an incremental implementation of a full dock UI, maybe first adding support for todo / graph / tags / quick-nav / back-links etc. etc., then finally breaking the log, spell and find widgets out of the tab-pane, which was the can of worms I ran away from. Cheers -Terry On Fri, May 24, 2019 at 10:10 AM Edward K. Ream <edream...@gmail.com> wrote: > Yesterday Leo's new docking interface saw first light. It's in the "dock" > branch. You can take a look by setting --dock in the command line. I am > eating my own dog food without serious problems. There are two bugs that > must be fixed. > > This post discusses whether Leo's legacy gui (look and feel) has any > long-term future. This is a thinking out loud post, and I definitely want > your opinions. > > *Important*: I have no plans to do anything drastic any time soon. I may > replace --dock by --no-dock, to make docking the default, but Leo's legacy > gui will continue work* exactly* as before for quite a while. If I do > retire Leo's legacy gui, it will likely be done in Leo 6.1, not 6.0, unless > we all, unanimously, fall in love with docks. > > *Important*: it will be much easier to follow along if you actually play > with the new gui before reading on. > > *The new gui* > > The Outline dock is the central widget > <https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qmainwindow.html#details>. The outline dock > can't be deleted, moved or floated, which is no real restriction at all. > See below. The Log dock resides in the left dock area; the Body dock > resides in the bottom dock area. This means that the Body dock gets the > full width of the main window. > > *Important:* The user can change the default placement of the Log and > Body docs (in relation to the Outline doc) by dragging the docks. Leo will > save and restore any changes, so the defaults above don't really matter. > (Saving/restoring doesn't work perfect at present. That's one of the bugs > that must be fixed.) > > I am in the midst of re-doing the add-editor command. It will likely use > Qt's splitDockWidget > <https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qmainwindow.html#splitDockWidget>method to do the > gui work. This promises to be a big visual improvement over Leo's legacy > add-editor command. > > *The central widget* > > Qt does not *require* a central that main windows have a central widget, > despite what obsolete docs may say. However, there are two big advantages > to having a central widget: > > - It's not possible to have an empty Leo main window, as in the last > screen shot in Chris George's recent post > <https://groups.google.com/d/msg/leo-editor/JAquBmE9yRA/UC79b7HlAwAJ>. > > - A central widget allows the user to drag dock widgets to any area at any > time. Without a central widget you can only drag a widget to an area that > already contains a dock. Once an area becomes empty it can't be used! > > At present I am leaning towards making central widget be a dock widget > that can't be moved, floated or deleted. This makes the central widget > look like a dock (with the Outline label). I think this visual uniformity > is good, but it does obscure the fact that the Outline is a central > widget. I'll be experimenting further with this. > > *Bugs* > > Two bugs must be fixed. These are early days, so there are likely more: > > 1. Leo doesn't preserve the sizes of the main window properly. This is > likely due to interactions with legacy code. > > 2. Alt-x doesn't set focus properly when the body pane is free-floating. > > *Retire Leo's legacy look?* > > This question appears to violate our rule that we never discuss > preferences. But imo the question deserves thorough discussion. Imo, a > dock-based gui is simply better: > > 1. Docks are (generally) more intuitive and flexible than Leo's legacy gui. > > However, this is debatable. I await your opinions. There are some (very > minor) drawbacks: > > - Without packing the Tabs dock into the Outline dock, there is (I think) > no way of *exactly* matching Leo's previous layout (@bool > big-outline-pane = False). > > - Without packing the Body dock into the Outline dock, there is (I think) > no way of putting the body pane precisely below the Outline dock. > > Imo, neither of these is a big deal. But we shall see. > > *Note: *Docks are required for #1093 > <https://github.com/leo-editor/leo-editor/issues/1093>, but I won't let > the tail wag the dog by letting this have any influence in our discussions. > > *Commands* > > Several commands could be eliminated if we retire the old gui, including > toggle-split-direction. Docks also suggest new commands. It would be > convenient to delete the old commands and add the new commands into Leo's > @menu setting, but we could easily live with both the old and new > commands. Non-functional commands would simply print a message and do > nothing. > > *Summary* > > Retiring Leo's legacy look and feel would be a major milestone. I won't > do it if there are serious objections to it. > > Having said that, I do think that retiring legacy gui would be in the long > term best interests of Leo's community: > > - *Unity*: It would avoid splitting users into separate camps. > > - *Simplicity*: it would simplify the code and would allow Leo to retire > commands related to the old gui. > > If serious objections do arise, Leo will support the --no-docks option > indefinitely. > > All comments, questions and concerns welcome. Let me know if I have > forgotten anything. > > Edward > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "leo-editor" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to leo-editor+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to leo-editor@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/leo-editor. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/leo-editor/8b025114-883b-404d-8b9d-c3040965df72%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/leo-editor/8b025114-883b-404d-8b9d-c3040965df72%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "leo-editor" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to leo-editor+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to leo-editor@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/leo-editor. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/leo-editor/CAFPg46ThQTWb%2BmSdurgJJzBsMZ8BZo3DOAXq0eqre%2B1cVMVRLw%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
