Re: gEDA-user: New icon set and UI changes

[Kai-Martin Knaak <knaak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Armin Faltl wrote:

> I think your icons look nice, but as you stated, the text in them is
> superfluous and should be in tooltips.

It should be text or icons or both -- configurable by the user. Text should 
be real text, not part of an image. This allows for a configurable font size 
and subpixel rendering optimized to the actual screen. This is how all major 
gnome and KDE applications do it. There is even a hook to get the config 
from the general preference of the user.
Like I said in some other post: Make the icons scalable!


> I see no reason to modify the layer switcher appart from allowing for
> burried/blind vias.

I'd suggest to do away with the check box in front of the layer items. The 
current layer should be highlighted by some less space consuming feature. 
Say, by a black frame. 

Switching the current layer is the most frequent layer operation. So it 
should be mapped to a simple left mouse click. A click modified by CTRL 
would shut off layers. This removes one of my favorite pcb-GUI errors: Shut 
off layers by accident when intending to switch.  A right mouse click should 
access a layer properties dialog (name, color, default route style, layer 
group, material, thickness, comment, ...) While at it, the layer groups 
should optionally bear a name.

BTW, current blind and buried via style shown in the Layer stack would be 
cool. 


> One of the most anoying things in the GUI is the coordinate display with
> "35.4999" and "48.0001"

ack. This bug is annoying. It is worst when doing footprints the GUI way.


> Why is the grid size in "view" and not in "settings" etc.?

ack. The menu system could use a clean-up for usability. The find feature is 
hidden in the select menu.


> I'm very much for consistent handling in gschem and pcb, esp. the mouse
> button for panning.

Me too. Add to it consistent keyboard shorts. Yes, I know, these can be 
tweaked with config files for both apps. However, I hesitate to deviate too 
much from the default. I teach geda/pcb to newbies, who have the default 
installed on their local boxes. 


> What the... is the bu... with "Request for bounding box of unsupported
> type 1024" if one is going to move the refdes of a part (inadvertently ),

I never came across this. Can you give a more detailed instruction on how to 
trigger the warning?


>> A couple other ideas I have:
>>   * replacing the layer switcher with one similar to GIMP's (select box
>>   with icons for visibility/locked) 

The current shaded buttons of invisible layers are perfectly fine with me.


>>   * doing something similar with the
>>   route-style switcher, showing the line and via sizes in the select list

That would receive a warm a welcome by me. To be able to check the 
essentials of the current route style at a glance would be great.


>> but would there be popular support for such intrusive UI changes?

If it were me, I'd suggest even more intrusive changes. From the top of my 
head:

* icon bars, that can be docked or even moved outside the main window
* icon bars that can be user configured.
* simple keyboard input to move and place actions
* a more powerful find action
* a find-and-replace action
* a GUI way to more control on DRC rules
* a GUI way to FreeRotate
* a GUI ways to non 90Â arcs
* a button or menu item to recalculate polygons
* a handles at the polygon corners 
* a way to highlight the "current" object
* automatic recalculation of rats.

Ok, I stop before I enter pipe dream mode.

---<)kaimartin(>---
-- 
Kai-Martin Knaak                                  tel: +49-511-762-2895
UniversitÃt Hannover, Inst. fÃr Quantenoptik      fax: +49-511-762-2211	
Welfengarten 1, 30167 Hannover           http://www.iqo.uni-hannover.de
GPG key:    http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?search=Knaak+kmk&op=get



_______________________________________________
geda-user mailing list
geda-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user