For what it's worth, my opinion on B1) is we should have icons. Good UI is important and icons help the user relate to items quicker more so then just a plain text based tree.<div><br></div><div>- Nathan <br><br><div class="gmail_quote">
On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 7:23 PM, Radim Blazek <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:radim.blazek@gmail.com">radim.blazek@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
Hi all,<br>
we are ready (Martin Dobias and me) to merge browser-and-customization<br>
branch to master.<br>
<br>
You can get idea about features in that branch from some snapshots:<br>
<a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/radim.blazek/QGISCustomizationQBrowser" target="_blank">https://picasaweb.google.com/radim.blazek/QGISCustomizationQBrowser</a><br>
<br>
Briefly for people who were not present at last HF:<br>
<br>
Customization support allows users to disable (hide) parts of QGIS UI.<br>
You can see example of minimal (maximal) customization of version 1.7<br>
on the first snapshot. It is possible to disable almost any element of<br>
UI: menus, sub menus, toolbars, tools, parts of dialogs, docked<br>
windows and status bar items. UI elements can be switched on/off<br>
either in tree (second snapshot) or interactively in QGIS application<br>
using customization select tool and clicking on UI elements.<br>
Customization is saved in separate settings and can be saved/loaded<br>
to/from file. There is also support for customized packages. If<br>
customization file is included in installation package, it is loaded<br>
the first time QGIS is started.<br>
<br>
The QBrowser is intended to be a geographic data resources browser and<br>
manager. Now it is implemented as a stand alone application but we<br>
would like to include it also in QGIS as alternative 'Add layer'<br>
dialog. Currently it is supported only by ogr, gdal and wms providers.<br>
At this moment QBrowser allows you to browse file system (where it<br>
identifies known geographic data) and defined WMS servers (shared with<br>
QGIS). If you select a layer you can view its metadata, preview and<br>
attributes (for vectors). It is possible to assign CRS to a layer (if<br>
supported by provider), create a new shapefile and manage WMS servers.<br>
<br>
<br>
We would like to discuss some issues with other developers before the merge:<br>
<br>
QBrowser:<br>
<br>
A1) All the data format specific functionality is implemented in<br>
providers. Each provider which wants to show his data in browser must<br>
implement 2 additional functions:<br>
QGISEXTERN int dataCapabilities ()<br>
QGISEXTERN QgsDataItem * dataItem ( QString thePath, QgsDataItem*<br>
parentItem )<br>
The dataCapabilities function says what kind of data is supported<br>
(File,Dir,Database,Net) so that e.g. WMS provider is not called on<br>
files or dirs. The dataItem() function returns QgsDataItem<br>
representing either known geographic resources for given file system<br>
path (gdal, ogr) or top level item (wms). It is important to design<br>
providers interface well, because it may be implemented also by custom<br>
providers and we cannot change it easily in future (after release).<br>
Please look at the QgsDataItem and its children methods and<br>
implementation.<br>
<br>
A2) To get access from QBrowser to QgsWMSSourceSelect via<br>
QgsDataItem, we had to move QgsWMSSourceSelect to wms provider. That<br>
is beginning of providers specific UI migration to providers, which<br>
has been discussed already before and generally accepted. To get<br>
select widget from main application we added in WMS provider another<br>
function:<br>
QGISEXTERN QgsWMSSourceSelect * selectWidget( QWidget * parent,<br>
Qt::WFlags fl )<br>
Currently it is more or less a hack for QgisApp::addWmsLayer(). We<br>
should probably define some QgsSelect either with methods returning<br>
URI or better signals for add new layer. Currently it is using<br>
signals, because WMS selector can add more layers.<br>
<br>
Customization:<br>
<br>
B1) The customization dialog tree is using Qt designer icons for<br>
various widgets. It looks nice but it adds 192K to QGIS package. Is it<br>
acceptable or do you prefer tree without icons?<br>
<br>
B2) For dialogs, the interactive customization select tool can only be<br>
activated by shortcut (because the dialogs are modal) which has to be<br>
defined for main application. We have used Ctrl+M because it is not<br>
yet used and M is close to right Ctrl. May be we should spare such a<br>
good key for better occasion?<br>
<br>
Please let us know your opinion or objections.<br>
<br>
Radim<br>
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</blockquote></div><br></div>