Re: [e4-dev] modernizing the workbench visual design and remaining a goo

[Kirill Grouchnikov <kirillcool@xxxxxxxxx>]

I have been waiting for an IDE (doesn't matter if it's Eclipse) to adopt or at least experiment with the ribbon ever since Office 2007 has been announced. I know that Microsoft has spent an enormous amount of resources grouping the existing functionality into ribbon tasks and bands, and the same must be done if the ribbon is seriously considered as the new UI paradigm for Eclipse.

Eclipse already has a few hundred commands, grouped in 9 main menus - exactly the ideal number of ribbon tasks. Furthermore, some commands are only relevant when a specific element is selected (think refactor or source). I don't think that galleries are relevant in the context of an IDE, but perhaps some plugins may find it useful.

I have been working on the Swing implementation of the ribbon in my spare time over the last 4 years (Google for Flamingo project). It provides the vast majority of Office 2007 functionality, and adapts to the current look-and-feel. I have pinged the SWT dev list a number of times over the last two years to see whether the theming APIs are coming. I see that as the major impediment that prevents me from considering a pure SWT port of Flamingo that will adapt to the platform look-and-feel. I did this for Swing native look-and-feels, and i'm sure that it is doable with an official SWT theming API. Unfortunately it looks like the theming APIs are condemned to the ill fate of project deadlines, budgets and other priorities. At this point i would just add that having such APIs opens the gates to writing third-party SWT components that look consistent with the rest of the native widgets.

Thanks
Kirill

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From: Elias Volanakis <elias@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: E4 Project developer mailing list <e4-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thu, December 3, 2009 11:53:59 AM
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:
> Hi, everyone.
> We had a brief discussion on the e4 call about this topic and thought it
> would be good to make sure everyone is aware of it.
>
> We are currently working with a graphic designer to modernize the style of
> the Eclipse 4.0 workbench. That is, what is the default stylesheet for the
> Eclipse SDK running on e4?
>
> One of the more interesting constraints, which we've always had in Eclipse,
> is balancing the desire for a custom/modern UI with respect for platform
> look and feel, and the user's platform theme. In Eclipse 3.x, we've done
> this by using native widgets in most places, and looking up system colors as
> a reference point when choosing colors.
>
> For e4, we still walk this line. Sure, we will have the technology to
> completely reskin the workbench, and folks are free to do so. But for the
> default look, I believe we will still be balancing these concerns. We may
> take more leeway in applying gradients, changing tab shapes, using
> background images or shading, but all of this should be done while still
> blending with the platform theme choices.
>
> CSS support presents a new wrinkle. It's not good enough to simply make the
> right color choices for the workbench. Sure, we can do the math internally
> and pick the right colors. But it would be ideal if we could provide
> developers with the ability to style their own applications in this platform
> respecting way, and include web components that could blend nicely. Since
> CSS is RGB-based for color attributes, we're looking at ways to specify a
> more HSV-style color for elements, where the hue could optionally be ignored
> and instead be derived from platform theme colors. Note we aren't just
> talking about background colors for images and gradients. We'd like to be
> able to specify widget colors in this way. How should this be specified in a
> stylesheet?
>
> Surely someone has already given some thought to this problem. If you have
> ideas, please comment in this bug! [1]
> A more general discussion of the visual design work can be found here. [2]
> And watching this bug [3] will ensure you see mockups when there is
> something to show.
>
> thanks,
> susan
>
> [1] https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=296175
> [2] http://wiki.eclipse.org/E4/CSS/Visual_Design
> [3] https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=293481
>
> _______________________________________________
> e4-dev mailing list
> e4-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
> https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/e4-dev
>
>



--
Elias Volanakis | Technical Lead | http://eclipsesource.com
elias@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx | +1 503 929 5537 | @evolanakis