Re: [Lazarus] New menu designer

[Howard Page-Clark]

On 26/12/2015 23:27, Juha Manninen wrote:

Howard, as the author you also have voting power over the GUI.
Besides GUI design is difficult, there is never a "right" solution
that everybody would agree upon.

Yes, dictatorship is far more efficient than democracy.


Yet I feel some things should be changed. All settings that duplicate
OI properties should either be moved to a bottom section of a popup
menu, or they should be removed completely.
Then the remaing GroupIndex feature from "Checkmark and radioitem
properties" dialog could be moved to the main window of menu designer
and the dialog then removed completely.
OK, I will work on a suitable patch that addresses these and the other 
issues that e.g. Péter and Maxim raised.


There are other usability issues, too.

Namely...?


From Kostas:
Since the menu editor is redesigned, why not do it like in Windows Forms
and NetBeans with the "inline editor" which is part of the form editor?


Good idea but how to implement it? It may not be a trivial task. We
can plan a future third iteration of menu designer to be an "inline
editor".
I'm not familiar either with Windows Forms or Netbeans. I'll do some 
research on this idea next year.


Howard


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Re: [Lazarus] New menu designer

[Juha Manninen]

On Sun, Dec 27, 2015 at 1:34 PM, Howard Page-Clark  wrote:
> Yes, dictatorship is far more efficient than democracy.

True, but this is neither dictatorship nor democracy. This is more
like meritocracy. :)

>> There are other usability issues, too.
> Namely...?

Top level menuitems in a MainMenu can be selected but there is no
indication about it. Other items get a blue rectancle.

There is a graph at right and bottom side of a selected item. A new
item gets created when it is clicked. It happens so easily that items
will be created by accident. Maybe a new item could become "real" only
after some property is changed. On the other hand the accidental item
is easy to delete.
The graph itself looks interesting and maybe too strong. It is a
matter of opinion of course.

Juha

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Re: [Lazarus] New menu designer

[Ondrej Pokorny]

On 22.12.2015 23:42, Anthony Walter wrote:
Stay on top is needed because the a menu designer is typically a 
separate non docking window (a dialog). For all users menu editing 
invariably consists of:


1. Creating a menu (or sub menu) item using the menu editor dialog
2. Then editing the menu item properties using the object inspector 
(setting the name/caption, possibly creating a click event stub)

3. Go back to step 1


In the undocked IDE there is absolutely no problem when the menu 
designer is not stay-on-top. You can switch from OI to ME there and back 
without any problems.

-> Stay on top is not needed. IMO on the contrary it is bad.

On 23.12.2015 00:39, Juha Manninen wrote:

Correct, and this becomes more important when AnchorDocking is used.
Some other windows, namely Actionlisteditor and Collectionitem have
the same issue.
Forum user Soner A. had a valid point here:
  
http://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,30663.msg195989.html#msg195989

I was already planning to check the behavior of those windows and ask
for opinions.


I added PopupParent to Actionlisteditor and Collectionitem as well. But 
only in the docked IDE. r51051, r51052.


Ondrej

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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus 1.6RC1 on various platforms

[Salvatore Coppola]

Ok "although" instead of "Thought"!
Ok wrong tread!
Should be opened an issou in the BT?
thanks for the huge amount of replies!

2015-12-26 10:00 GMT+01:00 Salvatore Coppola :

> Thought not 1.6 specific ther'is an annoying bug with the IDE undo. If you
> create an  event for instance
> procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
> begin
>
> end;
>
> do ctrl+z
>
> and only Button1Click from source is removed and not its reference in the
> OI. So if you try to recreate the Button1Click event via OI or dbclick on
> button1 the IDE is give a error msg that didnt help to find the problem
> (unit section enlighted)
>
> Salvatore
>
> ___
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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus 1.6RC1 on various platforms

[Ondrej Pokorny]

On 27.12.2015 21:40, Salvatore Coppola wrote:

Ok "although" instead of "Thought"!
Ok wrong tread!
Should be opened an issou in the BT?
thanks for the huge amount of replies!


I don't know if it is even possible and wanted to extend the source 
editor undo function with the ability to change the assigned designer.
So yes you can open an issue report in the BT if there isn't the same 
already but don't expect to get a solution soon. I even think this 
behavior will be identified "as intended" and your issue as "won't be 
resolved". Unless you supply a good patch, of course :)


Ondrej
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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus 1.6RC1 on various platforms

[Ondrej Pokorny]

On 26.12.2015 10:00, Salvatore Coppola wrote:
the IDE is give a error msg that didnt help to find the problem (unit 
section enlighted)


I find the error message clear enough:



and in the messages window you find

unit1.pas(1,11) Error: identifier not found: Button1Click

So there is no bug at all.

What do you want to change?
- do you want to remove the "Button1Click" reference in OI on undo?
or
- do you want to create Button1Click even if there is reference in OI 
but the method cannot be found?


Ondrej
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Re: [Lazarus] New menu designer

[Howard Page-Clark]

On 27/12/2015 13:25, Ondrej Pokorny wrote:

On 27.12.2015 14:21, Juha Manninen wrote:

On Sun, Dec 27, 2015 at 2:46 PM, Ondrej Pokorny
wrote:

>Highlighting works fine on Windows. It doesn't work on Linux. I haven't
>checked OSX.

Strange. I have tested with GTK2 and QT on Linux and the Windows
version using Wine. They all behave identically in this respect.


Don't forget that Linux+Wine is not Windows+win32 :)


The LCL implementation of themes (based on the work of Mike Lischke) for 
mainmenu highlighting in GTK2 and QT appears to work differently from 
the Windows implementation.
I will work on providing a custom-drawn mainmenu highlight across the 
board, and not depend on themeservices to display this, whether the 
needed highlight is for a main menu or a popupmenu, as a workaround in 
this case of the menu editor.


A better long term solution would be to make the highlight theming for 
TMainMenu and TPopupMenu fully consistent across all widgetsets. 
However, that is a task beyond me.


Howard


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[Lazarus] IDE extension and Debug Output window

[Dmitry Boyarintsev]

Hello,

What's the correct IDEIntf APIs to show "Debug Output" window as well as
populate with some debugging output?

thanks,
Dmitry
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Re: [Lazarus] ComponentPalette images size on HighDPI devices

[Juha Manninen]

On Thu, Dec 24, 2015 at 11:53 PM, Sandro Cumerlato <
sandro.cumerl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I've found a simple way to improve ComponentPalette usability on HighDPI
> touch devices.
> ...
> It is quite easy to enlarge buttons area (and improve usability expecially
> on touch devices), because the buttons size is hardcoded within source,
> look at the attached patch to see where it is located.
>
> It would be nice to add an option in ComponentPalette IDE Options section
> to let users change buttons size, it could be placed after Palette is
> visible checkbox and before Pages section.
>
> In my case 48x48 is good, but even 64x64 could be optimal.
>
> I haven't tried if something similar can be applied to IDE CoolBar buttons
> too, but it seems resonable to think about it as well.
>

Yes, it would improve usability in HighDPI systems. However I think it
should be automatic. When the system resolution gets higher, the images get
more space.
The next step obviously is to fill the space with bigger images. Then we
need 3 or more versions of every image.

However doing this for component palette + maybe IDE CoolBar is not enough.
At least TToolButton in LCL should support it, and maybe other controls
with icons. Then all applications would benefit.
IDE CoolBar is composed of Toolbars and ToolButtons, too.

If you code up with code to support that, I will be happy to apply it.
Initially reserving more space around icons would suffice, bigger images
would be used when they are available.

HighDPI issues are becoming more and more important as screen sizes and
resolutions keep growing.
We really must address it!

Juha
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Re: [Lazarus] New menu designer

[Ondrej Pokorny]

On 27.12.2015 13:10, Juha Manninen wrote:

Top level menuitems in a MainMenu can be selected but there is no
indication about it. Other items get a blue rectancle.


Highlighting works fine on Windows. It doesn't work on Linux. I haven't 
checked OSX.


Ondrej

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Re: [Lazarus] ComponentPalette images size on HighDPI devices

[Ondrej Pokorny]

On 27.12.2015 13:45, Juha Manninen wrote:
However doing this for component palette + maybe IDE CoolBar is not 
enough. At least TToolButton in LCL should support it


The correct place where to solve high-DPI issues is TControl.

It isn't a simple issue and it has to be judged properly.

I do write high-DPI aware LCL-applications already with the current LCL 
code. I don't think it can and should be fully automatic.


On 27.12.2015 13:45, Juha Manninen wrote:
HighDPI issues are becoming more and more important as screen sizes 
and resolutions keep growing.

We really must address it!


Yes but first we need a proper concept. Fixing this for 
TToolButton/IDECoolBar doesn't help.


Btw Sandro it doesn't look like you didn't take screenshots from 
high-DPI device, am I wrong?


Ondrej



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Re: [Lazarus] ComponentPalette images size on HighDPI devices

[Juha Manninen]

On Sun, Dec 27, 2015 at 2:56 PM, Ondrej Pokorny  wrote:
> The correct place where to solve high-DPI issues is TControl.

How exactly?

Juha

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Re: [Lazarus] ComponentPalette images size on HighDPI devices

[Ondrej Pokorny]

On 27.12.2015 14:03, Juha Manninen wrote:

On Sun, Dec 27, 2015 at 2:56 PM, Ondrej Pokorny  wrote:

The correct place where to solve high-DPI issues is TControl.

How exactly?


I'll think of a concept in the next days and will try to address 
high-DPI issues in the LCL.


Ondrej

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Re: [Lazarus] New menu designer

[Juha Manninen]

On Sun, Dec 27, 2015 at 2:46 PM, Ondrej Pokorny  wrote:
> Highlighting works fine on Windows. It doesn't work on Linux. I haven't
> checked OSX.

Strange. I have tested with GTK2 and QT on Linux and the Windows
version using Wine. They all behave identically in this respect.

There was talk about the left sidebar. I don't see a problem having
it. Its usability can be fine-tuned of course.
We have space to use. The GroupIndex feature should fit there, too.

Juha

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Re: [Lazarus] New menu designer

[Ondrej Pokorny]

On 27.12.2015 14:21, Juha Manninen wrote:

On Sun, Dec 27, 2015 at 2:46 PM, Ondrej Pokorny  wrote:

>Highlighting works fine on Windows. It doesn't work on Linux. I haven't
>checked OSX.

Strange. I have tested with GTK2 and QT on Linux and the Windows
version using Wine. They all behave identically in this respect.


Don't forget that Linux+Wine is not Windows+win32 :)

Ondrej

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