[bt-devel] Eliminate KFontChooser from Configuration Dialog

[Martin Gruner]

Hi Gary,

if you can work significantly better with Designer, I do not see why you should 
not be able to use it. After all, it is an integral part of QT.

Eeli and I decided against using it (extensively), but if you want to work 
with it, that's ok I think. Ok with you, Eeli?

mg

On Wednesday 19 November 2008 05:39:25 Gary Holmlund wrote:
> Eeli Kaikkonen wrote:
> > Gary Holmlund wrote:
> >> I worked on the layout of all the configuration dialog pages taking
> >> space out and reducing the size of the text rendering areas on the
> >> language and display pages. It is basically all that can be done
> >> without restructuring. The size is now about 600x400. I think it
> >> looks pretty good but the rendered text for the font chooser might
> >> be a little small. Please send your thoughts about it.
> >
> > To be honest, the visual experience is now worse. This is not to say
> > that it was good to start with or that your changes are bad; it just
> > proves that the dialog really needs restructuring.
> >
> > The rule of thumb with extra space is that we shouldn't add any to or
> > remove any from the default space set by the style. Space is needed to
> > give pleasant visual appearance and clarity and enhanced user
> > experience. Only if adding or removing space is aesthetically pleasing
> > it should be done. Now the dialog is so dense it looks bad and is hard
> > to read.
>
> I did take a lot of space out of the dialog because I thought the
> small height was a requirement. As you had put it, "even 800x480
> minus the desktop panel". I was not very happy with the result and
> had thought we might need to discuss a redesign of the layout
>
> > I don't know if you have experience with user interfaces. I'm not a
> > professional myself but I have studied it a bit in the University and
> > just for fun. I can recommend the links in
> > http://devel.bibletime.info/wiki/Programming_Guidelines#User-visible_text
> >. They point to the text specific areas of those documents but for example
> > the larger Mac documentation includes some nice guidelines for designing
> > layouts. (When you are there, read also the Title Case/Sentence case
> > guidelines from the wiki page - you wrote the font chooser headers with
> > Title Case.)
>
> Interesting. I did not know that the Vista guidelines had changed
> so much from the XP guidelines. Title case would have been correct
> for the font chooser headings under Xp. I will plan to use the BT
> guidelines.
>
> > But back to the real thing. I tried to write a new structure but it's
> > very hard. Here's one proposition:
> >
> > Text view
> >     - Display templates (tab)
> >     - Text filters (tab)
> >     - Fonts (tab)
> > Default works
> > General
> >     - Bible book names (group)
> >     - Startup logo (group)
> >
> > But I don't think it's perfect. "General" is never a good name. This
> > structure doesn't necessarily reflect the way a user would think about
> > it.
>
> This seems reasonable or perhaps the General group should be
> split as follows:
>
> Text view
>     - Display templates (tab)
>     - Text filters (tab)
>     - Fonts (tab)
> Default works
> Bible books
> Startup
>
> I think a redesign like this could be done in the next two weeks if I use
> Qt Designer. It is much easier to design these nested layouts visually and
> the amount of hand written code is much smaller. It also makes it easy to
> get re-sizable dialogs. Is there any reason not to use Designer?
>
> Gary Holmlund
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> bt-devel mailing list
> bt-devel at crosswire.org
> http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/bt-devel