On 01/28/2015 07:48 AM, Todd wrote:
On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 3:11 AM, Ronan Paixão <ronanpai...@gmail.com
<mailto:ronanpai...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Here's my opinions. Just for the record, I'm not a designer, but
then I have seen things evolve for many years (since the Win 3.1
years) and even though I'm not an artist myself, I like to think I
can see the details.
*Ribbon UI/toolbars*
For starters, we might begin with the ribbon discussion. Of course,
Microsoft introduced to the world at large (as general, sidestepping
prior art discussion) the ribbon UI.
Microsoft did, and possibly still does, require that anyone using a
Ribbon interface sign a license agreement with Microsoft. This would
need to be checked. If this is still the case, it could very well
conflict with having Spyder as MIT licensed. There is also no built-in
Qt ribbon widget, which would mean either a third-party one would need
to be obtained (which would probably be C++), or it would need to be
re-implemented from scratch (which would be a lot of work).
Yes, the Ribbon idea is a non-starter as far as I am concerned, if for
no other reason then it is design overkill and pretty much useless.
The other point I want to make is that the general trend in UI
design seems to be quite minimalistic. Just look at Google's new
Paper style for Android and other stuff. Compare newer GMail, Drive,
Facebook, <pick your site> to the older ones. They now all point
toward minimalism.
That is the trend for basic applications doing simple thing for everyday
users. I don't see such a trend with technical applications doing
complex things for technical users. That is not to say that making
things better organized is bad, it is definitely important, but I do not
think simplicity for simplicity sake is always the best solution. You
need to think first about what you are trying to accomplish and who will
be trying to accomplish it. The very fact that spyder is for people who
want to write their own software immediately rules non-technical people
doing simple things.
Simple is better. The current system works. You get to choose what you
want to display or not.
Fast. Powerful. User-friendly. Now choose any two.
- Eric Daniels
Avoid lines for useless division (the double-line problem pointed
earlier is caused by the tabs themselves, that draw a line above
that of the line drawn by the code widget). Use colors to
differentiate, but avoid too much color, like colorful icons,
gradients, unless it's absolutely needed. I might say that it is a
good time for me, who have always liked plain colors, so I might be
biased, but I also add that I don't like the Metro UI, for example,
that restricts users action. By the way, minimalism also tends to
enhance performance when drawing.
Colors are, and I think should continue to be, determined by the native
widget style.
*Icons*
Shifting the subject a little, I liked a lot the FontAwesome
project. I just might add that we might render the glyphs in-app
(with QFont and QGraphicsTextItem), but I don't think we should
actually do that. It would probably impact performance at a critical
time: the startup. So, I'd go with the PNG conversion too, but would
add a little tint color to differentiate groups of icons (run vs
debug, for example). That would mostly unify the icons. If some icon
isn't available yet, it wouldn't be too hard to do one in inkscape.
Specially since they're so minimalistic.
Adding to that, when I went to Anaconda (I noticed this after
version 2.1.0) the window icons weren't put properly in the Windows
taskbar, displaying Imagem inline 1 instead. I also noticed that
Spyder uses the same code that got my plugin running with the
correct icon, so I think it is an issue with Anaconda's packaged
QtSvg. Another reason to go with PNGs.
I am very strongly in favor of applications that fit in nicely with the
user's own environment. This means native theming, native layouts, and
also native icons. I think spyder should look as much like all the
other applications a user uses as possible. People who are used to a
particular icon style and the metaphors that icon style uses should not
have to learn an entirely different style just to use one application.
A possible alternative to unclutter the UI is Office's way to show
shortcuts (hold Alt and it shows the shortcuts, and the user compose
the shortcut with multiple keys).
I mentioned this is not possible in Qt with the meta ("win") key. To
expand on that, it is not possible with any of what Qt considers to be
"modifier" keys (shift, ctrl, alt, and meta).
Bottom line the ideas proposed are Windows-centric in a world that is
moving on from that. Even MS is having to acknowledge that, to the point
that are giving away a major upgrade just to keep people from moving off
the platform.
--
Adrian Klaver
adrian.kla...@aklaver.com
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