Re: gEDA-user: pcb gtk: Toggle buttons for route styles?

[Kai-Martin Knaak <kmk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Andrew Poelstra wrote:

> Can we use toggle buttons instead of radio buttons for the
> route style selector? It would look like so:
> 
> http://wpsoftware.net/andrew/dump/toggle.png
> 
> This gives more clickable area and a cleaner look, I think.

The look is still inconsistent. The buttons are centered. By
contrast, the tool box and the layer lines are flush-left.


I'd prefer a more radical change:

1) Make the route styles as user configurable as the layers. That
is, allow to add odr delete styles, change the order they appear 
in the GUI, 

2) Attach accel-keys to route styles. I know, we are running out 
of accels. But this is an important omission in the current GUI. 
Changing route styles is a very frequent action while manual 
routing. How about [ctrl-F1], ... [ctrl-F12]?

3) Add a little preview to the left of the route style name, that
indicates the width of the tracks. Actual width in the preview may 
be calculated relative to the other route styles. 

4) Get rid of the "Route Style" button. Its meaning depends on
the currently selected route style. This is very non-standard and 
newbie unfriendly. 
Proposal: Move its function to right-mouse click on every style button. 
Ideally, this would be complimented by a config page in prefernces in 
case a user can't do right-clicks (e.g. mac users). This would also be 
the place to change order config accel keys or add more route styles.
Side effect: More space in the right sidebar :-)

To fully implement these proposals, changes in the internals of pcb
are required. But at least, a GUI-only redesign should not conflict
such ideas.

---<)kaimartin(>---
-- 
Kai-Martin Knaak
Email: kmk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://pool.sks-keyservers.net:11371/pks/lookup?search=0x6C0B9F53
increasingly unhappy with moderation of geda-user



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