[news.eclipse.tools.gef] Re: thinner palette UI when docked

[Al Major <alnospammajor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Randy Hudson wrote:
> The only change I would consider would be to place the Palette "tab" above 
> the vertical scrollbar.
> This would require that we never display the canvas' real scrollbar, and 
> that we link selection of an external scrollbar to the canvas.

AFAIK, the vertical bar is always on the right (at least in locales 
where the language is written left to right). so in order for the flyout 
to remain intuitive the palette would have to be on the same side as the 
vertical bar.

i personally would be OK with this option. it's not the most appealing 
option visually, but it serves the purpose.

it would probably make sense to have this be a mode switch on the 
palette, with the default being the current UI. as long as the expert 
user has the option to switch to optimized real-estate use, it satisfies 
my concerns.

actually, if the ability to switch to the expert mode was itself 
programmable, i.e. an individual application could decide not to enable 
it, no current programs would need to be affected at all.

the ability to link to an external scrollbar needs to be flexible 
though. i've an implementation that decorates the editor with a ruler 
similar to the ruler in the text editor hierarchy, i.e. it's a composite 
ruler that allows an annotation area as well as a measuring ruler. it 
could probably be modified to also include a scrollbar and the "palette 
tab".

regards,

al

regards,

al