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Re: Plan B for layer names

 

On 4/16/2013 1:23 AM, Lorenzo Marcantonio wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 06:46:38PM -0400, Wayne Stambaugh wrote:
>> colors the white text does not show up very well.  That being said,
>> a more fundamental question, is the amount of work required to save
>> the width of one check box worth the effort?  There is already way
>> to hide the layer manager for low resolution devices where space is
>> a premium. Assigning an accelerator key to it would probably make it
>> more useful. You would probably save more space if you provided a
> 
> Fully agree with that. For me the only nuisance is the third button
> click for changing colour and I've already proposed my fix. Handling
> resize event in a 'smart' way could also 'solve' the problem and allow
> both shorter and longer names. At the limit a full collapse would only
> show the swatch and checkbox (a tooltip could be used for the layer
> name). That wouldn't be a lot of work iif wx has some features (it GTK
> that would be nearly trivial).
> 
> Talking about accelerators, I found this in real usage of pcbnew;
> obviously it's my workflow (I mostly do 2 layer and some 4-6 layers; for
> 2 layers in practice there is no need to hide stuff):
> 
> - First, I use a lot the 'hide all but current copper' function; a key
>   could be allocated for it
> 
> - Another thing I'd like is keys to show/hide layers like for changing
>   them; maybe the same F-keys shifted or something similar.
> 
> A for the 'low resolution' I think we should strive for at least
> 1024x768 or whatever is it's wide counterpart. There are a *lot* of
> laptop (even expensive ones:D) running with these specs...
> 
> We are *nearly* supporting them. If toolbars were customizable there
> would be no issue but I suppose that's a wx limitation. The ideal
> solution would be a dual icon set like open/libreoffice (I agree that
> the old icons are a little difficult on the eyes at high resolution).
> Other with that a little UI rework would solve most issues: I see that
> the button actually disappearing are the high contrast (and successives)
> and the grid origin button. Really few things... I think that simply
> putting the commands on the menu (instead of hidden in a dialog) would
> solve this (also *all* the UI guidelines in the world require that the
> menus contains the commands from the toolbar). In fact the only thing
> inaccessible is the high contrast display (at least there is a key for
> that:D)

The customizable toolbars are probably already within reach.  wxAui is
already being used to manage all of the main window UI elements.  We
just have all of the nifty features like tear away toolbars and child
windows disabled because the plumbing to save and restore the UI state
is not in place yet.  I think most users would prefer their changes to
be saved between sessions.  I don't know how much work this would be or
if there are significant differences between wxWidget 2.8 and 2.9
implementation of wxAui which would cause problems.  It might be a
better use of your time than focusing on the layer manager alone.

> 
> Other than that I don't see the need for two buttons for the unit change
> (the indicator is already on the status bar anyway); a toggle would
> suffice; and removing a few separator on the right bar shows every
> button (but that's not a problem, anyway)
> 



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