Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-20 Thread taazz

On 16/10/2014 19:49 μμ, Kostas Michalopoulos wrote:
I'm not that good actually, in my own programs 
http://i3.minus.com/ibuyWlnHJorkXY.png sometimes i even ignore the 
color grouping part :-P (although i do try to use colors that stand 
out and contrasted outlines). Also my icons are very simplistic and in 
some cases they look more like game sprites than icons :-P.


That is because you got the grouping wrong. You don't group based on 
application modules (forms, data, print, etc) you group on useability eg 
insert, add, append and everything that adds to the existing 
data/module/functionality green delete, remove, everything that has to 
do with remove red, everything that has to do with edit orange or 
something between green and red, blue is used for the info 
functionality, logo, about, hints and everything else that can be 
considered information. Something along those lines should be used for 
messages too although they are part of the info group in icon you can 
use sub groups (eg background color) to show the 3 basic groups of 
messages (info, error, unrecoverable error).


That leaves 3 basic categories with out colors searching, reporting and 
executing. I usually use yellow for reports, black and white for 
searching, executing on the other hand is so rarely used outside the 
developing tools industry that I do not have anything for it.


Oh I disagree about the borders/outline comment of yours, although it is 
crucial that every icon must be distinguishable (even when you squint as 
you said) there are far better methods to do that from a rigid pixelized 
outline.




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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-18 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys
On 2014-10-17 11:40, Jürgen Hestermann wrote:
 2.) Right-clicking on the bar and selecting View all.

Very useful, and which reminds me of a visual bug, which I just filed on
Mantis.

  http://mantis.freepascal.org/view.php?id=26881


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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-18 Thread Jürgen Hestermann


Am 2014-10-17 um 19:46 schrieb Paulo Costa:

On 17/10/2014 11:51, Michael Van Canneyt wrote:


I prefer the icons. I know exactly where they are. So that is better and
faster for me.


Yes. A well placed icon in a stable position can be a time saver.

As for those who claim to be faster with the keyboard, be cautious and read 
this funny thing:
http://www.asktog.com/TOI/toi06KeyboardVMouse1.html


This discussion was not about mouse vs. keyboard but text vs. icons.
You can select text with the mouse too (i.e. from a sorted list).
I don't see any advantage of icons over text.
I don't see the need to invest valuable working time into icon design
if the same can be achieved with text (which also has the advantage of
beeing sortable and filterable).

And regarding mouse vs. keyboard:

As mentioned many times it depends on many facts
whether you are faster (or maybe just more familiar) with
one or the other. The mouse is a visual tool while keyboard is
a mental tool.

If you know nothing the mouse could be
easier in the first place (although I saw people at their first
computer contact moving the mouse to the edge of the desk
and not knowing how to proceed because they could not
move further as the desk end was reached. So you
need a little knowledge with the mouse too).

Also, if you type text (so you are on the keyboard anyway)
it is much easier to just type a shortcut than reaching for the
mouse to search for and click on an icon or button.

The next step of dummying down the user interface is using
touch screens. But try to browse through a collection of
hundreds of pictures with

A) Touch screen gestures
B) Mouse moving a slider
C) Keyboard keys

I would always prefer C) because it is the less strenuous
and allows the most variation (cursor up/down, page up/down,
Ctrl+Cursor up/down, etc.).
You will soon get a tennis elbow when trying A).



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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-17 Thread Jürgen Hestermann

Am 2014-10-17 um 01:20 schrieb Juha Manninen:
 Yes, a better icon would be appreciated. I promise to apply it.

What a waste of manpower!
Programming the UI already takes so much effort
that it should be restricted to useful things.

Just compare the two ways of selecting a graphical component in the IDE:

1.) Wading through the icons/buttons (which
are grouped in tabs with text(!) names. Why?).

2.) Right-clicking on the bar and selecting View all.
With View-all I have a sortable list which I can filter
with a few keystrokes. What a comfortable function to find
things! And there is no need to create new icons for each
and every (new) component, just choose a (text) name.
What can be better?


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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-17 Thread Michael Van Canneyt



On Fri, 17 Oct 2014, Jürgen Hestermann wrote:


Am 2014-10-17 um 01:20 schrieb Juha Manninen:

Yes, a better icon would be appreciated. I promise to apply it.


What a waste of manpower!
Programming the UI already takes so much effort
that it should be restricted to useful things.

Just compare the two ways of selecting a graphical component in the IDE:

1.) Wading through the icons/buttons (which
are grouped in tabs with text(!) names. Why?).

2.) Right-clicking on the bar and selecting View all.
With View-all I have a sortable list which I can filter
with a few keystrokes. What a comfortable function to find
things! And there is no need to create new icons for each
and every (new) component, just choose a (text) name.
What can be better?


I prefer the icons. I know exactly where they are. 
So that is better and faster for me.


Everybody is entitled to his opinion, but beware of forcing it on others.
people can spend their time on whatever they like. 
If that is making icons, then this must be respected.


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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-17 Thread Paulo Costa

On 17/10/2014 11:51, Michael Van Canneyt wrote:


I prefer the icons. I know exactly where they are. So that is better and
faster for me.


Yes. A well placed icon in a stable position can be a time saver.

As for those who claim to be faster with the keyboard, be cautious and 
read this funny thing:

http://www.asktog.com/TOI/toi06KeyboardVMouse1.html

Paulo Costa

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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-16 Thread Kostas Michalopoulos
On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 6:34 PM, Jürgen Hestermann 
juergen.hesterm...@gmx.de wrote:

 But IMO the majority of icons is meaningless.
 Some even look very similar although they mean
 complete different things.
 Therefore I don't like them.


I was talking about the general idea for icons. Lazarus' icons aren't the
best though. The most immediate problem - IMO - is the use of color: which
is none. Almost all icons have a blue color making it hard to distinguish
them. Also the current icons do not have clean contrast in their outlines
which makes their outline invisible. As a rule of thumb, it should be
possible to locate an icon even when you squint.

IMO the older Lazarus icons were better for that, as shown here (notice the
strong outline and color use):
http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/images/e/eb/ReactOS.png

Also having icons that relate to the similar thing have similar colors
help. For example in the image above all icons that relate to forms have a
red/gray palette and all icons that relate to files have a white palette.
Saving isn't consistent though - the diskettes could have the same colors
(this dark yellowish one) but they dont. Also the folder could use a
similar color (light yellow like mos folders).

Having the same palette for all icons isn't good. See the backlash that
Visual Studio 2012 got for making everything gray initially and how they
added more color after that because of it.

Also IMO some icons in Lazarus aren't good as pictures. For example the
New form icon has controls in it - it should be empty (as it is right now
gives the impress that it will show some settings, at least from a first
look). The Tab order icon uses two arrows - this means nothing really
when it comes to ordering - in this case it is about specifying a sequence,
so something linear (like a vertical list of items) or something that shows
the nature of the ordering (like a few tiny controls with numbers) would be
better. The current icon is also the same (on what it shows) as the restart
icon. Similarly the Anchor editor icon isn't really helpful - sure, you
edit anchors, but the real purpose of the editor is to specify layout. A
3x3 grid or something like that with L/R/T/B letters could be better. Or
some controls with the guidelines drawn. In other cases the images are
inconsistent: beyond the restart vs tab order i mentioned above, the Object
inspector and Project inspector icons are essentially the same (the gray
circle in project is barely visible and i actually noticed it after looking
the two icons for some time). In this case the Object inspector is the odd
one out since it looks like the box, pyramid, sphere icon is used to mean
Project in other icons. Another case is the Jump Back and Jump
Forward buttons which use the binoculars even though they have nothing to
do with search and are instead about navigation (the binoculars are
otherwise used for searching stuff in other icons).
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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-16 Thread Howard Page-Clark

On 16/10/2014 12:54, Kostas Michalopoulos wrote:

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 6:34 PM, Jürgen Hestermann
juergen.hesterm...@gmx.de mailto:juergen.hesterm...@gmx.de wrote:

But IMO the majority of icons is meaningless.
Some even look very similar although they mean
complete different things.
Therefore I don't like them.


I was talking about the general idea for icons. Lazarus' icons aren't
the best though. The most immediate problem - IMO - is the use of color:
which is none...


What a very constructive contribution to this discussion. Thanks.

What Lazarus has lacked (for the most part, so far) is a contributor who 
has your eye for good GUI analysis, design and consistency, combined 
with the graphic skills needed to implement elegant icons appropriately.
My prayer is that this conversation which included a tirade against 
icons (and poor icons are indeed rather useless space-wasters) might 
result in someone(s) with the necessary skills and motivation offering 
improvements along the lines you suggest. Good application visual design 
is part of what a RAD IDE is meant to enhance, and it would be great if 
the IDE itself were an exemplary model of such excellence in GUI design 
which could stand the test of time in the way that most things Mac have 
justifiably become classics (without needing to slavishly follow every 
passing design fad).


Howard


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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-16 Thread Kostas Michalopoulos
I'm not that good actually, in my own programs
http://i3.minus.com/ibuyWlnHJorkXY.png sometimes i even ignore the color
grouping part :-P (although i do try to use colors that stand out and
contrasted outlines). Also my icons are very simplistic and in some cases
they look more like game sprites than icons :-P.

On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 3:22 PM, Howard Page-Clark h...@talktalk.net
wrote:

 On 16/10/2014 12:54, Kostas Michalopoulos wrote:

 On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 6:34 PM, Jürgen Hestermann
 juergen.hesterm...@gmx.de mailto:juergen.hesterm...@gmx.de wrote:

 But IMO the majority of icons is meaningless.
 Some even look very similar although they mean
 complete different things.
 Therefore I don't like them.


 I was talking about the general idea for icons. Lazarus' icons aren't
 the best though. The most immediate problem - IMO - is the use of color:
 which is none...


 What a very constructive contribution to this discussion. Thanks.

 What Lazarus has lacked (for the most part, so far) is a contributor who
 has your eye for good GUI analysis, design and consistency, combined with
 the graphic skills needed to implement elegant icons appropriately.
 My prayer is that this conversation which included a tirade against icons
 (and poor icons are indeed rather useless space-wasters) might result in
 someone(s) with the necessary skills and motivation offering improvements
 along the lines you suggest. Good application visual design is part of what
 a RAD IDE is meant to enhance, and it would be great if the IDE itself were
 an exemplary model of such excellence in GUI design which could stand the
 test of time in the way that most things Mac have justifiably become
 classics (without needing to slavishly follow every passing design fad).

 Howard



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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-16 Thread Juha Manninen
On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 2:54 PM, Kostas Michalopoulos
badsectorac...@gmail.com wrote:
 The Tab order icon uses two arrows - this means nothing really when it
 comes to ordering - in this case it is about specifying a sequence, so
 something linear (like a vertical list of items) or something that shows the
 nature of the ordering (like a few tiny controls with numbers) would be
 better. The current icon is also the same (on what it shows) as the restart 
 icon.

I am guilty for this one.
To get at least some icon there, I copied an existing icon and changed
its colors.
I remember it was some package related icon.
Yes, a better icon would be appreciated. I promise to apply it.

 Similarly the Anchor editor icon isn't really helpful - sure, you edit
 anchors, but the real purpose of the editor is to specify layout. A 3x3 grid
 or something like that with L/R/T/B letters could be better. Or some
 controls with the guidelines drawn.

IMO this is not completely bad.
Anchor borrows the concept and word from boats. The icon continues
the same idea.
Besides, anchors are only one way to make layouts. It is not a synonym
for layout.

 the Object inspector and Project inspector icons are essentially the same
 (the gray circle in project is barely visible and i actually noticed it after
 looking the two icons for some time). In this case the Object inspector
 is the odd one out since it looks like the box, pyramid, sphere
 icon is used to mean Project in other icons.

And even worse, the icon in the View menu is different from the icon
in the window.
The different IDE windows now have their own icons (in trunk) which is
nice but maybe they should match the View menu icon.

 Another case is the Jump Back and Jump Forward
 buttons which use the binoculars even though they have nothing to do with
 search and are instead about navigation (the binoculars are otherwise used
 for searching stuff in other icons).

This is fixed in trunk.
I noticed the same thing and Giuliano Colla kindly provided new icons.
This is related to the EditorToolbar component by Graeme now being
part of Lazarus bigide (installed by default).
It now has Jump Back and Jump Forward commands enabled by default.

Juha

P.S.
Anybody who looks for bugs or things to improve in Lazarus, please try
Lazarus trunk.
It has many improvements and other goodies.

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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-15 Thread Frederic Da Vitoria
2014-10-14 20:02 GMT+02:00 Juha Manninen juha.mannine...@gmail.com:

 There is also a report about it :
   http://bugs.freepascal.org/view.php?id=22278

 Clearly there should be an option for Icon only / Text Only / Both.
 It should be respected by all IDE windows and not only Project Inspector.

 Yes, I think '+' and '-' signs are more understandable than most other
 icons.
 In many situations I notice hovering my mouse cursor over speedbuttons
 just to see their hints because the icon itself is not informative
 enough.
 Then it is better if there is text already without hovering.

 Juha


Same for me

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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-15 Thread Jürgen Hestermann


Am 2014-10-14 um 20:13 schrieb Michael Van Canneyt:



On Tue, 14 Oct 2014, Jürgen Hestermann wrote:



Am 2014-10-14 um 18:43 schrieb waldo kitty:

On 10/14/2014 5:20 AM, hinsta...@yandex.ru wrote:

These urgently need to be reduced to icons with no text
http://s30.postimg.org/5hxkrzfkx/LWaste.png


why? and why urgently??

my personal preference is text only or text with icon if text only is not 
available... i never have liked just plain icons with no indication of their 
action...



+1
Icons are realy useless.
You cannot search for nor filter nor sort them.
They eat up space and performance without benefit.


There must be something wrong with your eyes then.
Icons use less space than text.

You can count the number of buttons where the text is smaller (as in: less 
wide) than the icon, on 1 hand.
At a first glance, for 'Add' the text is as wide as the icon. For all other 
buttons the text is wider than the icon.

So, no thank you. I prefer icons; you can get rid of the text for all I care.


With your argumenation a single pixel (in varying colors) would be even better 
than text and icons.
But of what use is it to use less space when no information is given?
If you leave out the icon at all it would use the fewest space.
This is what I always do: disable all button bars as much as possible and use 
menus or keyboard shortcuts.

Icons only use less space if they tell you nothing.
I often see text even in icons because otherwise the icon would be without any 
meaning.


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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-15 Thread hinstance
yesss indeed a good idea for saving even more space on Project Explorer window:
Add files = green thingy
Remove files = red thingy
Options = grey thingy
Help = blue thingy

Hmm I just come up with another idea: alternatively we could remove all these 
buttons from panel and then make it a menu which would appear when clicking 
window title icon (where we currently have Lazarus face thing):

[*] Project Inspector - Project1
file 1
file 2
...
So when you click [*] you would see a menu with four items: 
Add file
Remove file
Options 
Help

Of course nobody wold guess that this thingy opens an important menu, so we 
could make it look like this

[menu] Project Inspector - Project1

so it would be more obvious

15.10.2014, 13:40, Jürgen Hestermann juergen.hesterm...@gmx.de:
 Am 2014-10-14 um 20:13 schrieb Michael Van Canneyt:
  On Tue, 14 Oct 2014, Jürgen Hestermann wrote:
  Am 2014-10-14 um 18:43 schrieb waldo kitty:
  On 10/14/2014 5:20 AM, hinsta...@yandex.ru wrote:
  These urgently need to be reduced to icons with no text
  http://s30.postimg.org/5hxkrzfkx/LWaste.png
  why? and why urgently??

  my personal preference is text only or text with icon if text only is not 
 available... i never have liked just plain icons with no indication of 
 their action...
  +1
  Icons are realy useless.
  You cannot search for nor filter nor sort them.
  They eat up space and performance without benefit.
  There must be something wrong with your eyes then.
  Icons use less space than text.

  You can count the number of buttons where the text is smaller (as in: less 
 wide) than the icon, on 1 hand.
  At a first glance, for 'Add' the text is as wide as the icon. For all other 
 buttons the text is wider than the icon.

  So, no thank you. I prefer icons; you can get rid of the text for all I 
 care.

 With your argumenation a single pixel (in varying colors) would be even 
 better than text and icons.
 But of what use is it to use less space when no information is given?
 If you leave out the icon at all it would use the fewest space.
 This is what I always do: disable all button bars as much as possible and use 
 menus or keyboard shortcuts.

 Icons only use less space if they tell you nothing.
 I often see text even in icons because otherwise the icon would be without 
 any meaning.

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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-15 Thread Michael Van Canneyt



On Wed, 15 Oct 2014, Jürgen Hestermann wrote:



Am 2014-10-14 um 20:13 schrieb Michael Van Canneyt:



On Tue, 14 Oct 2014, Jürgen Hestermann wrote:



Am 2014-10-14 um 18:43 schrieb waldo kitty:

On 10/14/2014 5:20 AM, hinsta...@yandex.ru wrote:

These urgently need to be reduced to icons with no text
http://s30.postimg.org/5hxkrzfkx/LWaste.png


why? and why urgently??

my personal preference is text only or text with icon if text only is not 
available... i never have liked just plain icons with no indication of 
their action...




+1
Icons are realy useless.
You cannot search for nor filter nor sort them.
They eat up space and performance without benefit.


There must be something wrong with your eyes then.
Icons use less space than text.

You can count the number of buttons where the text is smaller (as in: less 
wide) than the icon, on 1 hand.
At a first glance, for 'Add' the text is as wide as the icon. For all other 
buttons the text is wider than the icon.


So, no thank you. I prefer icons; you can get rid of the text for all I 
care.




What is clear to me is that opinions vary, so, if it is changed, 
the behaviour should be made a setting.


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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-15 Thread Michael Van Canneyt



On Wed, 15 Oct 2014, hinsta...@yandex.ru wrote:


yesss indeed a good idea for saving even more space on Project Explorer window:
Add files = green thingy
Remove files = red thingy
Options = grey thingy
Help = blue thingy

Hmm I just come up with another idea: alternatively we could remove all these buttons 
from panel and then make it a menu which would appear when clicking window title icon 
(where we currently have Lazarus face thing):


That does not work on non-windows. You have no access to the window title bar.

Michael.

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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-15 Thread Kostas Michalopoulos
As a visual person, i prefer icons over text. But those icons have to
make sense and be clear, not randomly chosen just to put something that
looks nice there. When i am in doubt, i rely on hints.

Also text below icons waste space IMO. You only need to learn once what a
button does/means (even when the icon isn't that clear, it'll still stay
the same), not every time you use the program.

But since not everyone thinks like that, i'd take the approach mentioned
previously - make it an option.


On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 11:59 AM, Michael Van Canneyt 
mich...@freepascal.org wrote:



 On Wed, 15 Oct 2014, hinsta...@yandex.ru wrote:

  yesss indeed a good idea for saving even more space on Project Explorer
 window:
 Add files = green thingy
 Remove files = red thingy
 Options = grey thingy
 Help = blue thingy

 Hmm I just come up with another idea: alternatively we could remove all
 these buttons from panel and then make it a menu which would appear when
 clicking window title icon (where we currently have Lazarus face thing):


 That does not work on non-windows. You have no access to the window title
 bar.

 Michael.


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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-15 Thread Jürgen Hestermann

Am 2014-10-15 um 18:15 schrieb Kostas Michalopoulos:
 As a visual person, i prefer icons over text.
 But those icons have to make sense and be clear,
 not randomly chosen just to put something that
 looks nice there.

But IMO the majority of icons is meaningless.
Some even look very similar although they mean
complete different things.
Therefore I don't like them.


 Also text below icons waste space IMO.

Yes, if the icon would be meaningful (as it should)
then there should be no need for extra text.


 You only need to learn once what a button
 does/means (even when the icon isn't that clear,
 it'll still stay the same), not every time you use the program.

I prefer to type a few characters to filter a (text) list to find what I want
instead of wading through dozens of pictograms guessing what they
could mean and then click on one. Especially, because I prefer
the keyboard over the mouse anyway.
Visual searching for an icon is like playing memory (which I am not good in).


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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-15 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys
On 2014-10-15 10:56, Michael Van Canneyt wrote:
 What is clear to me is that opinions vary, so, if it is changed, 
 the behaviour should be made a setting.

At least under *nix systems where Gnome or KDE desktop environments are
used, it should really pick such settings up from the system. I remember
in my days of using Ubuntu 10.* I disabled icons in menus, and there was
a similar setting for toolbar buttons (icons only, text only or both).

If Lazarus LCL doesn't adhere to such system settings a specific IDE
setting is definitely a good idea. My workflow would be to have icons
and text enabled in the start, and once I know what the icons mean,
disable the text, thus saving on screen space.

Regards,
  - Graeme -

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[Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-14 Thread hinstance
These urgently need to be reduced to icons with no text http://s30.postimg.org/5hxkrzfkx/LWaste.png --
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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-14 Thread Reinier Olislagers
On 14/10/2014 11:20, hinsta...@yandex.ru wrote:
 These urgently need to be reduced to icons with no text

No, they don't. Icons cannot always indicate exactly what the purpose of
a control is - having a text and preferably a hint helps.

IIRC, the project inspector has enough vertical space to allow for this...

However, if you feel strongly about it, please feel free to submit a
patch in the bugtracker against current trunk.

Thank you,
Reinier


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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-14 Thread Michael Van Canneyt



On Tue, 14 Oct 2014, Reinier Olislagers wrote:


On 14/10/2014 11:20, hinsta...@yandex.ru wrote:

These urgently need to be reduced to icons with no text


No, they don't. Icons cannot always indicate exactly what the purpose of
a control is - having a text and preferably a hint helps.

IIRC, the project inspector has enough vertical space to allow for this...

However, if you feel strongly about it, please feel free to submit a
patch in the bugtracker against current trunk.


They should simply follow the global setting for such things, no ?

Michael.

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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-14 Thread Reinier Olislagers
On 14/10/2014 11:46, Michael Van Canneyt wrote:
 
 
 On Tue, 14 Oct 2014, Reinier Olislagers wrote:
 
 On 14/10/2014 11:20, hinsta...@yandex.ru wrote:
 These urgently need to be reduced to icons with no text

 No, they don't. Icons cannot always indicate exactly what the purpose of
 a control is - having a text and preferably a hint helps.

 IIRC, the project inspector has enough vertical space to allow for
 this...

 However, if you feel strongly about it, please feel free to submit a
 patch in the bugtracker against current trunk.
 
 They should simply follow the global setting for such things, no ?
 
If there is such a global setting, yes.


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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-14 Thread Michael Van Canneyt



On Tue, 14 Oct 2014, Reinier Olislagers wrote:


On 14/10/2014 11:46, Michael Van Canneyt wrote:



On Tue, 14 Oct 2014, Reinier Olislagers wrote:


On 14/10/2014 11:20, hinsta...@yandex.ru wrote:

These urgently need to be reduced to icons with no text


No, they don't. Icons cannot always indicate exactly what the purpose of
a control is - having a text and preferably a hint helps.

IIRC, the project inspector has enough vertical space to allow for
this...

However, if you feel strongly about it, please feel free to submit a
patch in the bugtracker against current trunk.


They should simply follow the global setting for such things, no ?


If there is such a global setting, yes.


Tools  | Options
then
Environment | Desktop
There such things can be specified more or less.

Michael.

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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-14 Thread Vojtěch Čihák

Hello,
 
I don't think it urgently need to be removed.
On the other hand, Lazarus is not consistent. Some windows (Call Stack, Project 
Inspector) has icons with captions while others (Watch List, History) are icons 
only.
If you will create patch to remove text, please check that all buttons has 
proper Hint. Usually they have but for example Call Stack doesn't.
 
Vojtěch 
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Od: hinsta...@yandex.ru
Komu: Lazarus mailing list lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org
Datum: 14.10.2014 11:21
Předmět: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons


These urgently need to be reduced to icons with no text 
http://s30.postimg.org/5hxkrzfkx/LWaste.png 
http://s30.postimg.org/5hxkrzfkx/LWaste.png 

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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-14 Thread waldo kitty

On 10/14/2014 5:20 AM, hinsta...@yandex.ru wrote:

These urgently need to be reduced to icons with no text
http://s30.postimg.org/5hxkrzfkx/LWaste.png


why? and why urgently??

my personal preference is text only or text with icon if text only is not 
available... i never have liked just plain icons with no indication of their 
action...


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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-14 Thread Jürgen Hestermann


Am 2014-10-14 um 18:43 schrieb waldo kitty:

On 10/14/2014 5:20 AM, hinsta...@yandex.ru wrote:

These urgently need to be reduced to icons with no text
http://s30.postimg.org/5hxkrzfkx/LWaste.png


why? and why urgently??

my personal preference is text only or text with icon if text only is not 
available... i never have liked just plain icons with no indication of their 
action...



+1
Icons are realy useless.
You cannot search for nor filter nor sort them.
They eat up space and performance without benefit.
I think that they were introduced for the illiterates who can't read.


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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-14 Thread Juha Manninen
There is also a report about it :
  http://bugs.freepascal.org/view.php?id=22278

Clearly there should be an option for Icon only / Text Only / Both.
It should be respected by all IDE windows and not only Project Inspector.

Yes, I think '+' and '-' signs are more understandable than most other icons.
In many situations I notice hovering my mouse cursor over speedbuttons
just to see their hints because the icon itself is not informative
enough.
Then it is better if there is text already without hovering.

Juha

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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-14 Thread Michael Van Canneyt



On Tue, 14 Oct 2014, Jürgen Hestermann wrote:



Am 2014-10-14 um 18:43 schrieb waldo kitty:

On 10/14/2014 5:20 AM, hinsta...@yandex.ru wrote:

These urgently need to be reduced to icons with no text
http://s30.postimg.org/5hxkrzfkx/LWaste.png


why? and why urgently??

my personal preference is text only or text with icon if text only is not 
available... i never have liked just plain icons with no indication of 
their action...




+1
Icons are realy useless.
You cannot search for nor filter nor sort them.
They eat up space and performance without benefit.


There must be something wrong with your eyes then.
Icons use less space than text.

You can count the number of buttons where the text is smaller (as in: less 
wide) than the icon, on 1 hand.
At a first glance, for 'Add' the text is as wide as the icon. For all other 
buttons the text is wider than the icon.

So, no thank you. I prefer icons; you can get rid of the text for all I care.

Michael.--
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Re: [Lazarus] Redundant text on project buttons

2014-10-14 Thread Hans-Peter Diettrich

Jürgen Hestermann schrieb:


Icons are realy useless.
You cannot search for nor filter nor sort them.
They eat up space and performance without benefit.
I think that they were introduced for the illiterates who can't read.


Icons have been introduced for visual people, who organize their 
desktop by landmarks and locations, not by searching.


When I met the first GUI on my Atari ST, I was familiar with it within a 
few minutes, and knew that this is the way I want to work with computers 
and programs. While I can remember patterns (arrangements, pictures, 
faces...) very well, I cannot remember names (of commands, people...), 
unless I use these names every day.


I admit that too many icons, with too few differences, are not really 
helpful, i.e. textual menus and lists have their place in my world, too. 
But the same applies to text (captions), which have to be different 
enough without wasting too much space. That's why I'd prefer icons 
without captions, but with hints, and kind of a (context) menu for an 
*entire* toolbar that can be popped up whenever needed. In the best case 
that popup should be searchable by keystrokes (incremental search), to 
please me and also people why prefer to work with text.


DoDi


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