[Qgis-developer] Better options dialogs

[Larry Shaffer]

Hi Alexander,

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 1:02 AM, Alexander Bruy <alexander.bruy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Larry,
>
> as already was mentioned in this thread similar design of options dialog
> was used several versions ago but then we switched to tabs. List widget
> only with icons IMHO not user friendly, especially for newcomers.
>
> If icons will be with captions we again come to initial problem for translators:
> translating some text when listbox is used is a real pain in some languages.
> I think Jean-Roc Morreale can explain all problems for translators better.

Thanks for the input. Might you be referring to
http://hub.qgis.org/issues/2202 ?

My proposed layout does not have that issue. The one for 1.6 used
large icons with text that was center-justified and wrapped
underneath, but had no means of increasing the overall width of the
widget by the user. It appears the larger icons were to aid in that
problem, but weren't enough for longer translations.

In my layout, the use of a splitter, whose state can easily be saved
to QSettings, allows for the width of the list widget to customized
(and stay that way) for users of different locales. I have 3 more
mockups to illustrate this [0]:

app-options_nowrap.png - Shows how the splitter can be moved to view
the whole option set label (note French substitution for Map Tools).
Expanding the left column like this, while possible, uses more
horizontal space than necessary. Horizontal scroll bar is still
available.

app-options_wrap.png - Shows the QListWidget's word wrap helping save
some horizontal space. This is with 32x32 icons, which I would
consider the largest for desktop (as with QGIS tool bars). Even larger
icons could be user-/config-set for touch screens.

Given the improved layout over v. 1.6's, I foresee no issues for translators.

> ... List widget
> only with icons IMHO not user friendly, especially for newcomers.

app-options_tooltip.png - Shows the collapsed splitter, with only
icons and tool tips. This is an optional user-adjusted (or possibly
button-enacted) view where the list widget's minimum width is set to
the width of the chosen icon size + some padding (with scroll bar
taken into account, if shown). This is not a default, which would not
be so nice for new users, as you noted. However, also note that with
this icon-only, space-saving view a user is not being presented with
anything less user-friendly than the many tool bar icons in the main
interface, which do not have any labels at all, only tool tips.

[0] http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4058089/qgis/options-dlgs/app-options_nowrap.png
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4058089/qgis/options-dlgs/app-options_wrap.png
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4058089/qgis/options-dlgs/app-options_tooltip.png

Larry

> 2012/9/5 Larry Shaffer <larrys at dakotacarto.com>:
>> Possible solution: Move 'tabs' to simple list widget on left side of a
>> splitter and have option sections loaded on right.
>>
>> I have done mockups for the app and vector layer options [0], which
>> show the following advantages:
>
> --
> Alexander Bruy