Re: [XBoard-devel] gtk layout question

[h.g. muller]

At 21:37 5-2-2010 -0800, Arun Persaud wrote:
> Hi
>
> I was wondering about the layout for the gtk version a bit and if we
> should use the opportunity to change a few things.
>
> One option I could think about for the gtk version would be to add a
> toolbar (something like the bar in firefox that has the reload, back and
> home button) that could change depending on the task you are doing...

Well, as long as t is optional. In fact XBoard already has something
like that, in the form of the button bar. This could be elaborated on.
But we should be aware that our current 'user base'  might mainly
consist of people that prefer simplicity. The certainly are not using it
because it has so many features. So people (like me) that dislike
GUIs that look like Chrismass trees, should be abe to swicth it off.

> e.g if you loaded a game, it could host the reload, load next, load
> previous functions as buttons, same for positions, if you edit a
> position it could host the pieces, if you play, it could have a button
> for draw, resign, etc.... with that the menus would become a lot
> smaller... just an idea though... what do you think?

In any case everything should remain accessibe by a menu and
a key binding. (where the key bindings should actually be listed in
the menus, so that people will actually know they exist, and start
using them when they are useful to them). Such as WinBoard has
now. I don't think the size of the menus is much of an issue; even in
XBoard it is trivial to add an item. Parameters set through dialogs
now are mostly unsuitable for appearing in a toolbar. (E.g. we would
not want 30 buttons there for 30 different variants to select from.)

Having a one-click resign button is probably a bad idea. (I even
received requests to remove the WB key binding for this, because
people accidentally pressed it.) The same could hold for New Game
and Abort.

It seems it is mainly the stuff in the Action and Step menu that are
suitable for this. Some Step-menu functions are indeed already on
the button bar now. Items of the Mode menu are more of a kind that
should be always accessible (rather than just in a few selected modes)
because their very purpose is to switch mode. Flip View, Mute All Sounds
and Swap Clocks might be very suitable to be aways there. (OTOH, they
are rarely used, and accessing them in a menu is thus no real burdon at
all.)

Of all XBoard menus, the only I use often are File and Options. The File
menu I indeed perceive as a bit bloated, due to all the Load Next, Previous,
Reload stuff. Basically I only use it for New Game, New Variant and
Copy-Paste (Although Ctrl-C Ctrl-V is often much easier for the latter).
And occasionally Save Game.

Note that the Load Next etc. stuff is not really very practical. When you
do have a game file with multiple games, it is much more convenient to
access it through the Game List. There you can click the game you want,
and there are also buttons Previous and Next there. These actually do
better what you want than those in the File menu, because they apply
the concepts Next and Previous with respect to the filtered list (which
displays only the games from the file that are relevan to you). Using
a Load Next and a Load Previous on a toolbar, not being able to see what
you will load, will always remain a very inferior solution. Reload seems
even more suprefluous to me.