Call for Standard: which default position for toolbars?

[carlopav]

Chatting with @chennes while testing his [GUI] Add Preference Pack support #4787 PR and following @Petrikas tests with interface customization, we were thinking that it could be a good idea to have a default position for FreeCAD toolbars, so when an user opens FC for the first time one does not have to arrange all the workbenches toolbars, but find a decent initial setup.

It would be nice if you want to contribute and post a screenshot of the arrangment of one workbench or two to explain your proposal! Expecially the core workbenches like Part PartDesign Sketcher TechDraw Path Draft Arch etc.

Then we can collect the parameters in preferences under Tux\PersistentToolbars\User\EachWorkbench and list them as following, to be inserted into the default preference Pack:

Code: Select all

    <FCParamGroup Name="Tux">
      <FCParamGroup Name="PersistentToolbars">
        <FCParamGroup Name="User">
          <FCParamGroup Name="DraftWorkbench">
            <FCBool Name="Saved" Value="1"/>
            <FCText Name="Left"></FCText>
            <FCText Name="Right"></FCText>
            <FCText Name="Top"></FCText>
            <FCText Name="Bottom"></FCText>
          </FCParamGroup>
        </FCParamGroup>
      </FCParamGroup>

As a general guideline - not being an UI or graphics expert - i'd like to see as much consistency as we can between the toolbars arrangement of different workbenches.

[carlopav]

ping

ping

ping

[Petrikas]

Thanks for pinging me in.

I'd love for a good standardized UI, however, I've faced a couple of issues when making the VertUI.

The first one and the most prominent issue is toolbar length. Toolbars found in workbenches such as Arch, Part Design, Fasteners, have more than 20 tools in them and hence don't fit vertically on a FullHD screen. Some of them don't even fit horizontally. That ends up making an "expand" button which creates a lot of problems. A solution to this would be better toolbar segmentation (divide toolbars more, avoid cramming every tool into one toolbar). But this would warrant rewriting many toolbars/workbenches.

Bonus feature of Vertical UI is that it doesn't change when working with split screen (i.e. Having FreeCAD on the left, and a PDF open on the right of the screen). This is less possible with a horizontal UI.

This leads to piling toolbars at the top of the screen, which encloses the user in a letter-box style work area, which, at least from product design perspective, is not optimal. The viewport should more or less be square, or slightly rectangular.

What I do strongly recommend, is swapping the workbench drop-down for tabs. Even though it sacrifices screen real-estate, but it speeds up anyone's workflow x-fold, it is better UX (being able to see workbenches and understand how they switch toolbars), and lastly, it helps building muscle-memory, which is very important for professionals that spend 8h+ a day working with FreeCAD.

Thanks for all the work you put in improving the UI, carlopav. You and chennes are heroes for people like me!

[carlopav]

Thanks for replying.
I probably agree with everything you sayd.
Splitting toolbars Is really easy, and also creating dropdown menus. We can make a couple of PR and they are likely to be accepted.
Can you list all the problematic ones?

Then I can add that - as we say here - "the best Is the enemy of the good"... So better to start with something that can Just be Better that what we have now