[Qgis-developer] Composer redesign

[Andreas Neumann]

 Hi Nathan,

 In general I like your redesign.

 Regarding the vertical scrollbars: they aren't removed, are they? When 
 redesigning the print composer, please think about small netbook and 
 smartphone screens where the vertical scrollbars and tabs are the only 
 means of reaching all UI elements. Those are the reasons why they were 
 introduced in the first place.

 One thing I don't like currently is the drawing of the basic shapes 
 (rects, circles, triangles). In normal drawing applications one selects 
 the shape first and then draws it. In Print Composer you always draw a 
 circle first (even if you usually want a rect) and later change the 
 shape to what you want. This is not very streamlined. I would prefer to 
 have a drop-down button that allows to select the shape first (like the 
 align and order buttons) and then start drawing.

 I did not test your branch though.

 Andreas

 On Thu, 2 Feb 2012 23:06:21 +1000, Nathan Woodrow wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Tonight I did some tweaking to the composer window.  A few things had
> been bugging me a for a while now and I decided I would have a go at
> fixing some of them, or at least try to anyway.
>
> The general changes are:
>
> 	* Redesign the composition (general) tab to remove the need
> to vertical scroll, in most cases. (Not a perfect redesign but it
> works IMO much better then the old layout)
>  	* Remove wasted space around paper area and widget (see picture[1]
> vs your install to see the difference)
> 	* Convert the split widget + tab widget to QDockWidgets. 1) The
> splitter didn't remember its last position or state 2) Could only 
> view
> one tab at a time 3) The main QGIS window uses dock widgets to allow
> flexibility in screen layout, composer should too. 4) Can't hide tabs
> if you don't need to see them all the time e.g. command history .
> Using dock widgets solves all of these issues. 
>
> The current working branch can be found
> at https://github.com/NathanW2/Quantum-GIS/tree/composer-redesign [1]
>
>
> I have also attached [1] an annotated screen shot if you don't want
> to compile the branch.
>
> If I could get some general feeback and testing that would be good,
> keep in mind it's not a final copy and I will tweak things as I go.
>
> I'm currently adding it so the dock windows remember the state, just
> like the main QGIS dock widgets, but that isn't in the branch yet.
>
> [1] http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/525/composer1026.png/ [2]
>
> Thanks,
> Nathan
>
> Links:
> ------
> [1] https://github.com/NathanW2/Quantum-GIS/tree/composer-redesign
> [2] http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/525/composer1026.png/

-- 
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 Andreas Neumann
 Böschacherstrasse 10A
 8624 Grüt (Gossau ZH)
 Switzerland