| Re: [e4-dev] modernizing the workbench visual design |
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I'd be interested in legal side as well. last time it ended up with some trouble: https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=267015 Jacek Toedter, Kai wrote: Elias, I agree with you and actually I am a Windows user and like your Ribbon approach very much. Do you know if there are any legal issues that had to be clarified with Microsoft for using a Ribbon-like design at all? And, I am not sure about the question how platform independent the basic e4 look & feel should be. What I like right now, is that I could use Eclipse easily on Mac or Linux without since the basic design is the same. But I really would love to see a less cluttered, modern UI :) Best wishes, Kai-----Original Message----- From: e4-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:e4-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Elias Volanakis Sent: Donnerstag, 3. Dezember 2009 20:54 To: E4 Project developer mailing list Subject: Re: [e4-dev] modernizing the workbench visual design and remaining a good platform citizen One of the things I personally would like to see is a less cluttered UI, with less menu elements, toolbar elements and local toolbars (see Netbeans). Eclipse seems overloaded to me. Personally I also find the "gray" look dated and does faring well compared with recent apps, esp on Windows 7. Some ideas: - having something like the Ribbon would help In my leisure time I've been working on a prototype running based on Eclipse 3.5.x and the Ribbon from Hexapixel (http://hexapixel.com/projects/ribbon). See some screenshots below for a rough idea - I would like to have even less stuff on there in the final version. I find that having less menus and toolbar elements makes Eclipse more usable to me - very much comparable to the improvements in office when compared with the "old" office. The argument that the Ribbon takes up more space is not valid, as the Ribbon can be collapsed and the most frequently items are in the window toolbar. So it ends up using less space. Looking forward I would very much like to see SWT support the native Windows Ribbon that is part of Windows 7. I think that the licencing situation would be different for that than for an emulated Ribbon, so it is fair to re-open this discussion. - the unused space on the right side of the toolbar could be used for some ambient notifications like build results, test results (green/red), news/stream (twitter, recent commits). I don't have this working yet. - making the local view toolbars hidden by default and having to click something to show them. I find that 99% of the time I don't touch the local view toolbars so they are wasting space. I'm working towards adding the most frequently used local toolbar elements to the main toolbar and making the view toolbars hidden by default. - modern theming, less grayness, for example the semi transparent Aero- look would fit better with Windows 7. Curious to hear more ideas, Elias. On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 8:31 AM, Susan Franklin McCourt <susan_franklin@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: |