[GNC] survey: unifying the appearance in different options dialogs

[Adrien Monteleone]

> On Aug 1, 2018, at 4:57 AM, Geert Janssens <geert.gnucash at kobaltwit.be> wrote:
> 
> Op dinsdag 31 juli 2018 00:51:54 CEST schreef Di Mang:
>> Hello Geert and Adrien,
>> 
>> I agree it is a good idea to revise the report options and possibly
>> summarize to reduce the number of tabs.
>> There are currently
>> some reports that have tabs with only a few settings.
>> 
>> 
>> But in my opinion it would not be a good solution to move away completely
>> from tabs for *all* option dialogs.
>> For option dialogs with only a few reports it will take up too much space
>> on the window.
> 
> This doesn't make sense to me. If we move to "tabs" on the left for at least 
> one option window, we need to dimension the window anyway that it will fit on 
> the smallest screen we wish to support. How would this minimal dimension be 
> affected by the number of "tabs" in that area ? (I'm quoting "tabs" because 
> it's not the exact term for the exact widget I had in mind, more on that 
> below).
> 
> Having a consistent way to represent options throughout the application is 
> more important to me.

I agree. Options shouldn’t switch to one or the other based on their quantity. All of these dialogs should be consistent. And if it can work once...

> 
>> 
>> 
>> I think we
>> have to
>> distinguish between different
>> option
>> dialogs / windows:
>> 
>> * main window: an exception, because of dynamic tabs (with a scroll bar if
>> necessary)
> 
> Indeed, although a scroll bar for tabs is a bit awkward.
> 
>> 
>> *
>> windows with main preferences: currently with tabs on the left side (like
>> in Geany)
> 
> I suppose you mean “many" preferences.
> 

Perhaps the ‘main’ app preferences, which does use the sidebar list. The Gnome desktop does the same.


>> 
>> An alternative solution may be
>> the Side Bar List instead of Tabs on the left side (like in LibreOffice,
>> Gimp, Firefox)
> 
> I surely agree a Side Bar List is better and that (or something similar) is 
> what I had in mind. In fact I thought that's what you meant as well as the 
> option dialogs for several reports were showing a list of groups instead as a 
> list of tabs on my system already before your change.

Yes Side Bar List is the proper widget from what I can glean from the Gnome HIG. I thought that was what Di Mang was referring to as well.

> 
>> * option dialogs with only few tabs: tabs at the top position (like in
>> Geany, Gedit, Gimp, LibreOffice)
> 
> As said that would then break consistency again. Wasn't that your initial 
> argument (which I like) ?
> 
> My ideal solution would be a dynamic side bar list. That is if there's enough 
> horizontal screen space (and the dialog is wide enough) show the list 
> permanently. If the dialog gets narrowed (either due to user action or due to 
> limited screen space), make the list hidden by default (with a button to show 
> it) and when that button is clicked make it hover the actual content.
> 
> Here's a video of another application implementing this behavior (though from 
> the KDE world):
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H24jdjE5Q6E
> 
> Clearly this is for gnucash 4.x at best...
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Geert

Interesting. I don’t suppose Gtk+4 has this in the works?

Regards,
Adrien