Re: [Usability]A Tale of a Toolbar editor

[Dave Bordoley <bordoley pilot msu edu>]

Chipzz wrote:

> On 17 Mar 2003, Biswapesh Chattopadhyay wrote:
>
>
>  
>
> > 3. We'd like toolbar customization to be in the toolbar context menu -
> > somehow makes more sense that way IMHO. But it should also be standalone
> > function and preferably some widget so that we can embed it in our
> > preferences dialog. It would be nice to right-click on a toolbar/menu
> > to customize it.
> >    
>
> And how would you save your toolbar settings? I'ld suggest in a glade
> file, but this pulls in a libglade dependency in Gtk+ which for obvious
> reasons is crack :). This is why I think toolbar editing belongs some-
> where else, like in a *grin* BonoboToolbar? ;P

Uhh we're discussing a toolbar editor (well at least we started with) 
for egg menus/toolbars that will become part of gtk in the 2.4 release 
(and if i'm understanding this correctly are a replacement for all 
existing gnome menu/toolbar implementation including bonobo). So putting 
this in gtk makes a lot of sense. But the configuration issue is a 
problem (gconf dep is bad probably).

>  
>
> > 4. There should be graceful handling of the situation where there's an
> > large number of toolbar items. I feel the Epiphany style is OK for a
> > small number of items, but it might be pretty unweildy for a large
> > number of tool items (say, 100 or so). Besides, D&D for customization is
> > pretty overrated IMO. It migtht make a cool GUI gimmick but makes life
> > difficult for users of more complicated apps like office suites and
> > IDEs. It is also difficult to make it a11y friendly I think. I
> > personally think the OpenOffice 'Tools->Configure' thing is pretty cool
> > since it brings menu editing, toolbar and toolbar item customization,
> > keyboard shortcuts and user-defined event macros under one consistent
> > GUI. Here're the screenies:
> > 	http://sourcebase.sf.net/oo-eventeditor.png
> > 	http://sourcebase.sf.net/oo-keyeditor.png
> > 	http://sourcebase.sf.net/oo-menueditor.png
> > 	http://sourcebase.sf.net/oo-statuseditor.png
> > 	http://sourcebase.sf.net/oo-tooleditor.png
> >    
>
> This sounds like (is it bonobo?) verbs.
>
> I think for the reasons above toolbar editing should not be in Gtk+, and
> there is still a place for either a Gnome- or BonoboToolbar, which would
> be radically different from the curent ones thou.
>  
Well hopefully with gtk 2.4 there will be one and only one 
impelementation of menus and toolbars (with wrappers in order to 
guarantee api/abi compatibility), increasing ui consistency etc. Can't 
speak on the technical issues though.

dave