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Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label?

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Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label? Andrew Pullins 12 Feb 08:03
  Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label? Gez 14 Feb 14:04
   Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label? Gez 14 Feb 14:52
    Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label? Alexandre Prokoudine 14 Feb 15:03
     Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label? Alexandre Prokoudine 14 Feb 16:23
     Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label? Liam R E Quin 14 Feb 16:23
     Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label? Gez 14 Feb 16:30
      Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label? Alexandre Prokoudine 14 Feb 16:47
       Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label? Sam Gleske 15 Feb 09:09
        Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label? Liam R E Quin 15 Feb 09:24
         Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label? Gez 15 Feb 16:53
      Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label? Liam R E Quin 14 Feb 16:48
Andrew Pullins
2014-02-12 08:03:17 UTC (about 10 years ago)

Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label?

I was wondering if it was possible to remove the "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label from underneath the tool box? I found a way to remove wilber from the top which I really do not like, I think Wilber should be at the top. once I found this I tried to remove the label but can not seem to find a way to do this. If there is not I think you should really consider removing it from GIMP. 1. it is an eye sore and looks like it is a mistake, and 2. you removed the doc area borders from underneath the dialogs assuming that users are smart enough to figure out how to doc dialogs together. why not remove this text.
--
Jesus is my Lord and Saviour. Praise be unto God for giving us a way to live with him.

Gez
2014-02-14 14:04:38 UTC (about 10 years ago)

Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label?

El mié, 12-02-2014 a las 03:03 -0500, Andrew Pullins escribió:

I was wondering if it was possible to remove the "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label from underneath the tool box? I found a way to remove wilber from the top which I really do not like, I think Wilber should be at the top. once I found this I tried to remove the label but can not seem to find a way to do this. If there is not I think you should really consider removing it from GIMP. 1. it is an eye sore and looks like it is a mistake, and 2. you removed the doc area borders from underneath the dialogs assuming that users are smart enough to figure out how to doc dialogs together. why not remove this text.

I was thinking about this and came up with the idea of replacing the text with a plus icon and a tooltip instead of the text.

I was about to create a quick mockup on this capture https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/255376/gimp/drop-area.png (it shows how bad it looks when the toolbox is downscaled, not to mention how much worse it gets when the text is localized)

Then I realized that probably a simpler solution is to just hide that text when the drop area isn't big enough to contain a dialog inside. My screenshot is a good example. You can't put any dialog there without rescaling the toolbox.

Anyway, that text still looks pretty bad, even when it's appropriate, so here's the mockup with the idea:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/255376/gimp/GIMP-drop-icon.png

I think it's quite compact and easy to discover, and it definitely looks better than the current text.
The idea of hiding it when the drop area is too small still applies.

Gez

--

Jesus is my Lord and Saviour. Praise be unto God for giving us a way to live with him.

I think this is pretty much O.T.

Gez
2014-02-14 14:52:36 UTC (about 10 years ago)

Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label?

El vie, 14-02-2014 a las 11:04 -0300, Gez escribió:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/255376/gimp/GIMP-drop-icon.png

The same icon and tooltip can be placed in the top-right corner of the no-image window (in single window mode) if there are no dialogs docked.

Alexandre Prokoudine
2014-02-14 15:03:18 UTC (about 10 years ago)

Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label?

On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 6:52 PM, Gez wrote:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/255376/gimp/GIMP-drop-icon.png

In general, I like the idea, but there's an obvious usability problem here: this icon looks like a button, and the first thing one group of people will try to do is to click it. Needless to say, they will fail. Another group of people will decide that this is an inactive button and that they should do something to activate it, which is, again, unapplicable to this case.

My educated guess is that only a fraction of users will read the tooltip and act accordingly. I'd love to be proven wrong, though :)

Alexandre

Alexandre Prokoudine
2014-02-14 16:23:30 UTC (about 10 years ago)

Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label?

On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 7:03 PM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/255376/gimp/GIMP-drop-icon.png

In general, I like the idea, but there's an obvious usability problem here: this icon looks like a button, and the first thing one group of people will try to do is to click it. Needless to say, they will fail. Another group of people will decide that this is an inactive button and that they should do something to activate it, which is, again, unapplicable to this case.

My educated guess is that only a fraction of users will read the tooltip and act accordingly. I'd love to be proven wrong, though :)

Also, repeating myself from an IRC conversation...

I'm not sure why we need this message or button at all.

This message is only visible in the tools toolbar when you drag the tools settings dialog away, which you do either by accident or intentionally.

So it's only kinda helpful when you have absolutely no idea what you just did. And I'm saying "kinda", because I've seen enough evidence that people who accidentally close dialogs or move them away don't know what to do anyway. They typically end up on forums asking "Help! I did something, and this thing is gone!" or "I changed something, and now this thing is elsewhere and I need it back!".

People who already know how to organize UI in GIMP don't need this reminder in either form at all, because they already know.

It's all assumptions, of course :)

Alexandre

Liam R E Quin
2014-02-14 16:23:37 UTC (about 10 years ago)

Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label?

On Fri, 2014-02-14 at 19:03 +0400, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:

On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 6:52 PM, Gez wrote:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/255376/gimp/GIMP-drop-icon.png

In general, I like the idea, but there's an obvious usability problem here: this icon looks like a button,

The open look people years ago solved this with a universal drop target - it was a "recessed" box so did not look like a button, drawn with the toolkit theme colours; when you dragged over it it showed wiggly lines in it representing text, to help strengthen the affordance (and the drag cursor changed, of course).

Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org freenode/#xml
Gez
2014-02-14 16:30:37 UTC (about 10 years ago)

Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label?

El vie, 14-02-2014 a las 19:03 +0400, Alexandre Prokoudine escribió:

On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 6:52 PM, Gez wrote:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/255376/gimp/GIMP-drop-icon.png

In general, I like the idea, but there's an obvious usability problem here: this icon looks like a button, and the first thing one group of people will try to do is to click it. Needless to say, they will fail. Another group of people will decide that this is an inactive button and that they should do something to activate it, which is, again, unapplicable to this case.

Hmm, that's a very good point.
What about this?

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/255376/gimp/GIMP-drop-icon_b.png

My educated guess is that only a fraction of users will read the tooltip and act accordingly. I'd love to be proven wrong, though :)

Yes, unfortunately I think you're right. That's why I included in this mockup one target on the right side of the window.
The flashing edges are quite discoverable when you already have a dock there, but there is no visual hint in the empty window that you can actually drop the dialogs there.

Gez.

Alexandre Prokoudine
2014-02-14 16:47:20 UTC (about 10 years ago)

Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label?

On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 8:30 PM, Gez wrote:

What about this?

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/255376/gimp/GIMP-drop-icon_b.png

Way, way better, IMO.

The flashing edges are quite discoverable when you already have a dock there, but there is no visual hint in the empty window that you can actually drop the dialogs there.

Exactly :)

We are discussing this on IRC right now. Feel free to drop by :)

Alexandre

Liam R E Quin
2014-02-14 16:48:06 UTC (about 10 years ago)

Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label?

On Fri, 2014-02-14 at 13:30 -0300, Gez wrote:

El vie, 14-02-2014 a las 19:03 +0400, Alexandre Prokoudine escribi:

On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 6:52 PM, Gez wrote:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/255376/gimp/GIMP-drop-icon.png

[...]

people will try to do is to click it.

Hmm, that's a very good point.
What about this?

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/255376/gimp/GIMP-drop-icon_b.png

Another approach would be to make it pop up a menu when you click on it,
Add dockable dialogue
with a list, and perhaps "About Docking..." at the bottom to lead to a help page.

But it's an area also where Peter's feedback would be useful, I think.

Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org freenode/#xml
Sam Gleske
2014-02-15 09:09:45 UTC (about 10 years ago)

Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label?

On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 11:47 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine < alexandre.prokoudine@gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 8:30 PM, Gez wrote:

What about this?

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/255376/gimp/GIMP-drop-icon_b.png

Way, way better, IMO.

Resending... replying to list.

Agreed, I think it would be useful to take it a step further. Hide the drop icon (as it is currently mocked) completely until user mouses over the area. Regular users who don't populate that area don't necessarily need to see a "drop" area but new users can still discover it if they accidentally mouse over it. With the assumption that they accidentally removed the docs of course.

Liam R E Quin
2014-02-15 09:24:07 UTC (about 10 years ago)

Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label?

On Sat, 2014-02-15 at 04:09 -0500, Sam Gleske wrote:

Hide the
drop icon (as it is currently mocked) completely until user mouses over the area. Regular users who don't populate that area don't necessarily need to see a "drop" area but new users can still discover it if they accidentally mouse over it. With the assumption that they accidentally removed the docs of course.

Having a pop-up menu when you click on the button, with "restore recently removed docks" and "add dockable dialogue" would help even more.

Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org freenode/#xml
Gez
2014-02-15 16:53:13 UTC (about 10 years ago)

Remove "you can drop dockable dialogs here" label?

On Sat, 2014-02-15 at 04:09 -0500, Sam Gleske wrote:

Hide the
drop icon (as it is currently mocked) completely until user mouses over the area. Regular users who don't populate that area don't necessarily need to see a "drop" area but new users can still discover it if they accidentally mouse over it. With the assumption that they accidentally removed the docs of course.

I'm not sure about this.
The problem is the one on the right, isn't it?

First, we have to keep in mind that there are two possible situations: single window mode and floating windows. The drop target I mocked on the right is intended for single window mode only. It wouldn't make sense with floating windows because you can't dock dialogs in the image window when you're using that mode.

Also hiding and showing the drop target on mouse over would require to reserve the area or making it pop up anytime you hover, and that would be very annoying at any rate.
I think the drop target on the right should be displayed only when there is no image open and no docked dialogs.

The drop target on the left is part of the toolbox window in window mode, so it's a little bit different. It can be showed always (when there is no dialog docked, of course) both in single and multi window modes.

El sáb, 15-02-2014 a las 10:24 +0100, Liam R E Quin escribió:

Having a pop-up menu when you click on the button, with "restore recently removed docks" and "add dockable dialogue" would help even more.

I agree it would be useful, but we have to think about how to display and hint a widget that it's both a drop target and a button. In my first mockup it looked like a button, as Alexandre pointed out. That would fit with this idea of adding two options, but it would probably hide from users that they can drop dialogs there. ...Unless both are present, a button and a drop target.

Any idea about how to communicate that without getting the text back in the drop target?

There's also the problem with single-window/multi-window modes.

Anyway, this is only brainstorming. I'm sure our GUI expert will have better ideas about how to solve this. :-)

Gez.