kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Manveru <manveru@...>]

2009/6/1 Ing. Gabriele Oberhammer <gabriele@...>:
> [Attachment(s) from Ing. Gabriele Oberhammer included below]
>
> Thanks for all the replays :-)
>
> Based on all the replies considerations, what do you think about the
> following compromise?
>
> - a slightly larger toolbar with two columns, see screenshot (note this is a
> mockup made
> with wxFormBuilder, it's not working code!)
>
> - only the available layers are visible on the toolbar
>
> - with the first columns you select the current working layer (obviosly only
> one layer can
> be selected at the same time).
> Using a toggle button makes it easy to see which is the current layer.
>
> - with the second column, made of check boxes, you choose if the layer is
> currently
> visible or not (obviously an hidden layer cannot become the current working
> layer)
>
> - with a right click on a layer button, you can bring up a popup menu with
> several options:
>
> 'Edit name...' which opens a dialog for....(suspense...)... changing the
> layer name
>
> 'Edit color..' " " " " " color
> (Maybe the color could be selected with a ColourPickerCtrl)
>
> 'Change button position' which allows to move the button to another position
> on the
> toolbar (the position will be saved with preferences)
>
> 'Anything else'
>
> - on the bottom of the bar, there is an 'Undock' button. Pressing this
> button hides the
> LyersToolbar and opens up a *modeless* version of it which can be moved
> anywhere (even on
> another monitor).
> Or insted we can label the button 'Switch to advanced mode' (or anything
> similar) and
> display a new version of the 'Pcbnew Layers color' dialog, enhanced with
> controls for all
> the functions present on the tollbar popup menu, so you can select them
> immediately
> without right-clicking anywhere.
> ....mmm, maybe this is a better idea, because on this 'advanced' dialog we
> could also
> choose which technical/other layers will be present in the 'docked'
> LayersToolbar
>
> - remove the layer selection drop-down menu
>
> I know that simulating the docking/undocking mechanism is not elegant, but I
> guess this is
> the only multiplatform compatible solution without switching to wxAUI.
> Moving to wxAUI will be a really big improovment for UI usability, but I
> guess this would
> need a huge kicad UI rework.
>
> Again, best regards :-)

Personally I do not prefer this way you've just presented. But this is
my private opinion and it does not worth a lot. It is hard to find
good compromise in case when some want to name Layers on its own, but
I would rather see large simplification of this panel, with some very
short names on them... or better - this should be a users' choice
whether they want full names to see or just numbers and single letters
on color background. Buttons should not be a check boxes but two state
buttons, the inactive layers could have additional gradient added to
colour for better visibility. I do not have infrastructure now to
mock-up my idea of displaying them.

Having the GUI based on wxAUI would be rather interesting, but last
time I've tried to use it, it was in very poor condition under
Windows. Not all gadgets were redrawn properly in case of moving docks
around. Anyone know its current condition?


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Manveru
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