[UI improvement] Put wb selector, menubar and doc tabs in 'Top bar''

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adrianinsaval
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Re: [UI improvement] Put wb selector, menubar and doc tabs in 'Top bar''

Post by adrianinsaval »

onekk wrote: Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:43 am Probably moving something where the icon and "window management" button are placed, is not feasible as it left (at least on Linux) to the "Window Manager" (being it part of the DE or not).
It is possible since there are many apps that do it, but I don't think it's good practice. Personally I do have the menu bar on the window frame but that is implemented in the window decoration I'm using, I really dislike applications that render their own window decoration for no reason (damn you gtk).

Besides that putting all three on the window decoration would make it too crowded IMO and unusable the second you decide to tile FreeCAD.

About the idea of making the menu bar into a single icon I also dislike this, this only works for simple applications that don't have many controls and can fit all the important stuff in a menu, this is not the case for FreeCAD were this thing would become and unwieldy mess of big submenus.
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Roy_043
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Re: [UI improvement] Put wb selector, menubar and doc tabs in 'Top bar''

Post by Roy_043 »

Some remarks:

The statusbar is used to display texts when hovering over a menu item. If the statusbar is used for a different purpose we would need an alternative for this information. For example implement tooltips for menu items.

The Draft WB places two widgets in the statusbar (Draft_snap_widget and Draft_annotation_scale_widget).

For smaller screens and in case of many menus (f.e. from the Draft WB) up to 50% of the menu bar can be filled already, leaving not very much room for tabs.
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obelisk79
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Re: [UI improvement] Put wb selector, menubar and doc tabs in 'Top bar''

Post by obelisk79 »

adrianinsaval wrote: Thu Jul 21, 2022 11:52 am About the idea of making the menu bar into a single icon I also dislike this, this only works for simple applications that don't have many controls and can fit all the important stuff in a menu, this is not the case for FreeCAD were this thing would become and unwieldy mess of big submenus.
I disagree with your assessment, the menus really become no more, or less verbose or cluttered as a result of placing them inside of a QToolButton widget instead of the traditional menubar provided it is located in the very top left position of the UI. It would definitely feel foreign and unusual at first for experienced users with plenty of muscle memory of where things are already though.
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adrianinsaval
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Re: [UI improvement] Put wb selector, menubar and doc tabs in 'Top bar''

Post by adrianinsaval »

obelisk79 wrote: Thu Jul 21, 2022 12:57 pm I disagree with your assessment, the menus really become no more, or less verbose or cluttered as a result of placing them inside of a QToolButton widget instead of the traditional menubar provided it is located in the very top left position of the UI. It would definitely feel foreign and unusual at first for experienced users with plenty of muscle memory of where things are already though.
It's an additional level and makes it a PITA to use because you don't see the available menus, you have to go into the button and then to the menu you want. I wouldn't mind if this is implemented as a configurable option, I don't even mind if you make it default, but I oppose making it the only option. Hiding functionality away is not a good trend IMO, it works for simple apps (image viewer, terminal, etc.) but not for stuff like FreeCAD.
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Re: [UI improvement] Put wb selector, menubar and doc tabs in 'Top bar''

Post by onekk »

adrianinsaval wrote: Thu Jul 21, 2022 11:52 am It is possible since there are many apps that do it, but I don't think it's good practice. Personally I do have the menu bar on the window frame but that is implemented in the window decoration I'm using, I really dislike applications that render their own window decoration for no reason (damn you gtk).
In fact we have about same idea, as when touching UI you have to take into account:

- Not every users have a screen resolution of 1920 x 1808 or similar
- Not every user is using a DE some are using only a WM, so "titlebar" is not everywhere modiffiable by the application, and I'm not taking in account Windows and MacOS of what I know little about the UI.
- "Windows decorations" could be even more complicated as some WM and compositor could have some idea about the titlebar, so it could be limit the "freedom of choice" that at least on Linux is one of the most appreciated things.
adrianinsaval wrote: Thu Jul 21, 2022 11:52 am About the idea of making the menu bar into a single icon I also dislike this, this only works for simple applications that don't have many controls and can fit all the important stuff in a menu, this is not the case for FreeCAD were this thing would become and unwieldy mess of big submenus.
About making some part of the UI disappearing, I usually prefer to not have this sort of things, for at some reason:

- if "relevant" part of the UI wil appear and disapper this could be a problem for some people that have "visual impairement" or are subsceptible to epilepsy, so think that these are considerations that a developers must take in account.
I was not aware of this fact but when developing my Scripting guide" I was contacted by a people that are arguing about my "color coding" usage and that have pointed me to some considerations and articles about these problems.

- The answer to the question "what is making a UI modern?" could be very challenging. From what I know very often is only a matter of taste and aesthetics considerations, or worse only a "trendy thing", like the rapid growing of dark UI seems to demonstrate.

- A UI must have IMHO the only requisite of usability so better to group things "by scope" or using some "coherent way", using maybe colors (taking in account color impairment considerations) that are similiar for similar operation or "similar workflow" for similar operation and "similar UI organisation".

There are some forum message that request similar things, like if i make an operation of XX in Draft and I have a similar operation in Part Design or Part. why the organization of the Frame is different, and I find as example Angle at the bottom in one Frame and in a completely different way in the other frame.

I know that "modernizing the UI" is a most wanted thing, and there are many efforts to make such genre of things, (and this could be a good way to take in account even the color impairment thing). But as FC is a "functional program" better to concentrate on "usability" and "coherence of the UI finalized in a more quick learning curve" and only after having accomplished this task concentrate on aesthetics things, at least at "core developer" level.

my two (maybe foru or even more) cents.

As usual sorry for bothering, if this post is not OT.

Regards

Carlo D.
GitHub page: https://github.com/onekk/freecad-doc.
- In deep articles on FreeCAD.
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adrianinsaval
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Re: [UI improvement] Put wb selector, menubar and doc tabs in 'Top bar''

Post by adrianinsaval »

onekk wrote: Thu Jul 21, 2022 2:24 pm - Not every user is using a DE some are using only a WM, so "titlebar" is not everywhere modiffiable by the application, and I'm not taking in account Windows and MacOS of what I know little about the UI.
AFAIK there is simply no way of adding stuff to the OS/WM provided window decorations, apps that add stuff there use the so called "client side rendering" the window title bar is fully done by the app independently of the WM, for some WM this may result in having double window decorations.
I know that "modernizing the UI" is a most wanted thing, and there are many efforts to make such genre of things, (and this could be a good way to take in account even the color impairment thing). But as FC is a "functional program" better to concentrate on "usability" and "coherence of the UI finalized in a more quick learning curve" and only after having accomplished this task concentrate on aesthetics things, at least at "core developer" level.
+1 IMO the basic design of FreeCAD's UI is pretty good, what it is lacking and actually needs improvement is the coherence of the UX, task dialogs should be as similar as reasonable possible across tools and WB, tabs position and stuff like that are superficial changes that would have little or no impact on FreeCAD's usability, making the workbench selector more prominent can be useful for newbies but hiding the menubar content inside another menu IMO would have a negative impact on usability and only serves the purpose of temporary eye-candy.
I say this because I tried once to use KDE's global menu button which essentially does this for all applications, it was fine for text editors, image viewers, music players, etc. but the moment I used gimp or FreeCAD where I actually use the menu buttons I immediately started to hate it.
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onekk
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Re: [UI improvement] Put wb selector, menubar and doc tabs in 'Top bar''

Post by onekk »

adrianinsaval wrote: Thu Jul 21, 2022 2:41 pm I say this because I tried once to use KDE's global menu button which essentially does this for all applications, it was fine for text editors, image viewers, music players, etc. but the moment I used gimp or FreeCAD where I actually use the menu buttons I immediately started to hate it.

In fact as example Gimp has chose to make "detachable" windows,to assign more real estate to the drawing, but it is old fashioned, as modern UI don't use stacked windows, it is "old school" and should be avoided.
:D


Se as example the "Start Menu" button that has "pested" all the UI on Linux to resemble Windows, or the toolbar like MacOs that or the "icons shapes" round, with "squared angles", monochrome, and so on that from time to time became the "must have" to resemble "modern", sadly they change after some new things appear, despite the usability, I know many users that have abandoned Word when MS has changed the way menu where organized and added "context toolbars", so years of "muscular memory" and productivity improvement were wasted after an upgrade.

Regards

Carlo D.
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- In deep articles on FreeCAD.
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Jee-Bee
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Re: [UI improvement] Put wb selector, menubar and doc tabs in 'Top bar''

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Roy_043 wrote: Thu Jul 21, 2022 12:04 pm The statusbar is used to display texts when hovering over a menu item. If the statusbar is used for a different purpose we would need an alternative for this information. For example implement tooltips for menu items.
Check that is what it called...
I'm sure how much people are aware that the status bar give tooltip info... (I can say i just tested it and you are right)
For me it is fine if the status bar is removed or at least is optional...
onekk wrote: Thu Jul 21, 2022 2:24 pm - Not every users have a screen resolution of 1920 x 1808 or similar
Are sure FC has to develop his view based on people that still have a 800 x 600 screen size?
1920 x 1200 was introduced in 2003...
Jolbas wrote: Thu Jul 21, 2022 11:51 am I would like an option to not display the document tabs at all. I use the Tree View to switch document.
Please don't give bad ideas. In the tree view there should be only a single document at the time. It is worse than goint to the menubar specially with more than a few documents to use your words ;) !
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onekk
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Re: [UI improvement] Put wb selector, menubar and doc tabs in 'Top bar''

Post by onekk »

Jee-Bee wrote: Thu Jul 21, 2022 3:19 pm
onekk wrote: Thu Jul 21, 2022 2:24 pm - Not every users have a screen resolution of 1920 x 1808 or similar
Are sure FC has to develop his view based on people that still have a 800 x 600 screen size?
1920 x 1200 was introduced in 2003...
Maybe 800x600 is too less resolution, so probably even 1024x768, could be too less as resolution.


I'm curious about what are "moderns professional CADs" "minimal requirements" in terms of screen resolutions.

Another thing could be what "moder UI" are you referring, maybe some "Blender and similar" modern UI.

I think that FC has to "take in account" (not conforming too, but haing in mind and trying to follow) what other "mechanical CADs" are using in term of UI, as I think tha main "user base" is made by people that have used or are using these type of CADs or even some "Architectural CADs".

The truth is that FC is a "program of his own" as it has many functions, that rarely are present in "other CADs".

Over all other consideration FC has a "limited asset of coding resources" so better to not waste efforts, to concentrate on "non functional" things, as probably many users are more concerned about:

- "TNP"
- Solution for some "fillets problems"
- One official Assembly WB and not three.
- TechDraw improvement to produce "technical sheets", ("Blueprints"? sorry by English is not my mother language, and I've not attended engineering courses)
- Uniform UI for similar operation
- More smooth handling of complex design.

I've put TNP as first place, only because some people thinks that this is the main problem, but as I'm coding most of my modelling using scripting, I was not affected from this sort of problems.

From my limited point of view I'm more interested in "documenting the API" and improve "examples of code" for complex operations, but I know that these are "niche matters" so I'm not expecting (but I hope that something will happen in the near future) that developers will be involved in this sort of things, prior to have solved "more important" FC tasks.

Regards

Carlo D.
GitHub page: https://github.com/onekk/freecad-doc.
- In deep articles on FreeCAD.
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adrianinsaval
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Re: [UI improvement] Put wb selector, menubar and doc tabs in 'Top bar''

Post by adrianinsaval »

onekk wrote: Thu Jul 21, 2022 3:07 pm In fact as example Gimp has chose to make "detachable" windows,to assign more real estate to the drawing, but it is old fashioned, as modern UI don't use stacked windows, it is "old school" and should be avoided.
:D
current version of gimp has all the panels attached by default, I remember I hated how older versions had everything as a separate window. Just so you know FreeCAD's panels and toolbars are all dettachable too ;) (but I think they remain as always above the app, can't remember if that was the case with gimp too)
Jee-Bee wrote: Thu Jul 21, 2022 3:19 pm Are sure FC has to develop his view based on people that still have a 800 x 600 screen size?
1920 x 1200 was introduced in 2003...
perhaps not 800x600 but not long ago my main computer had 1360x768 and I had trouble with some software that had too many stuff vertically and didn't think of using a scroll area, and right now my work pc has that resolution too. I also had to use a 1024x800 monitor where word censored gnome software didn't fit, that one is inexcusable, a stupid software center doesn't need that much space, specially not with all the effort those guys put into minimalist UI.
Anyhow, the everybody has big screens now argument actually goes against the idea of maximizing 3D viewport since it is the small resolutions that really need the extra space.
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