[Bf-committers] 2.5 UI font

[William Reynish]

Hi,

I'm not quite following this debate.

First of all, horizontal properties are still available: http://www.reynish.com/files/blender25/horizontal_buts.png

This image really shows the issue with horizontal layout (bad use of space), which was already largely unusable in 2.49. Many panels already varied in height back then (See Mirror in Shading context or especially constraints and modifiers), and the ones that didn't largely consisted of random, unorganized buttons.

Second, are you proposing to have two independent layouts for horizontal and vertical layouts? If so, I don't see that solving any issues. Conversely I think it's asking for trouble.

That said, I'm all for a solution that makes it possible to have a vertical or horizontal layout, but so far there's been talk about it in vague terms. Better to get actual proposals/mockups/something concrete.

Whichever way I can think of looking at it, the problem comes down to this: How do we organize panels of arbitrary height in a horizontal fashion?


Three possible solutions I can think of:

1: remove horizontal layout - use vertical instead
2: keep it as-is to ease transition to vertical
3: Implement clever way to make panels 'wrap around' and spill contents into the next panel column
4: Use a simple type of 'autofit' to make panels fit into the available space without spilling/splitting panels over multiple columns

Did I miss any?

Something like option 3 is of course theoretically possible, though that both requires a fair bit of work, and I don't think its really viable in terms of usability. What it means is that panels would jump around as you resize the properties area, making the UI seem very unstable. Option 4 implies headers not always aligned, making eye scanning through many panels difficult.


Cheers,

-William


On 8 Dec, 2009, at 8:35 PM, GSR wrote:

> Hi,
> dingto at gmx.de (2009-12-08 at 1903.45 +0100):
>> honestly. 2.5 was designed for vertical buttons window in the first 
>> place, everything else is up to the user, who can modifiy the layout 
>> files as he wish.
> 
> So there will be lots of redundant work that is not properly
> shared. There should be no problem if layout engine provided
> horizontal functions, just add two functions draw_horizontal and
> draw_vertical, move current contents of draw to draw_vertical and make
> draw have an if/else decide (until h is implemented, use v
> one). Finally let users become new developers and contribute the
> draw_horizontal code.
> 
> GSR
> 
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