Suggestions for UI.

[vincegata]

May I give some suggestions to improve that clean and straight forward interface of CodeLite, from a guy with experience in UI design and development:

1) The toolbar at the bottom of the screen should be a tab bar of the Output Pane. Right now your interface is inconsistent. You're using tabs in Workspace and Debugger Panes but tool bar with buttons for Output Pane. Besides, that thick toolbar is taking precious vertical real estate.

2) Debugger messages window is out of place and out of any Panes, it should go as another tab into the Output Pane.

3) It should be an easy way to Show/Hide tabs in all Panes. Not everyone uses ASCII Viewer and Symbols viewer all the time. Too much information makes the IDE clattered.

[eranif]

You're using tabs in Workspace and Debugger Panes but tool bar with buttons for Output Pane

I dont see the problem with it, I actually like it

Besides, that thick toolbar is taking precious vertical

So would the tabs (in case the output pane is viewable)

Debugger messages window is out of place and out of any Panes

What debugger messages window? the one that *is* part of the output view?

Not everyone uses ASCII Viewer and Symbols viewer all the time. Too much information makes the IDE clattered.

Whats wrong with simply not selecting the tab?

Eran

[vincegata]

I just looked at the screenshots on the website and Codelite looks exactly like I'd like it to be!

Why my Codelite looks different? Are those screenshots of codelite for Windows?

[eranif]

I just looked at the screenshots on the website and Codelite looks exactly like I'd like it to be!

Are you talking about this screenshot http://codelite.org/images/editor_general.png ?
Note the revision number at the top of the frame (890) - this means that this is how codelite loooked ~4000 commits ago...
(I made this screenshot 3 years ago or even more...)

If I learned something over the years of making codelite is that you cant make everyone happy. If I will change the toolbar at the bottom, I assure you at 100% that someone *will* complain about why I removed it.
Making it configurable is just investing too much time in something that does not provide any new functionality/bug fix - so I prefer to leave this areas to other developers who are willing to send patches (the patches must retain the current behavior + make the new behavior configurable)

Eran

[vincegata]

The Output Pane contains Build, Errors, Search, etc. windows. I build often and fix my syntax errors quickly so I spend maybe 5% of my time with those windows. I believe the same statistics applies to most of the other developers. Most of my time I spend with Editor writing code, or with Locals, Watches, and less with Stack, Breakpoints, etc debugging code; and I always keep the Workspace in front to navigate the files.

So, 95% of time I see the output toolbar at the bottom that I do not use. It sits there and takes the space out of my Editor. Why should I see this toolbar that works only for the Output Pane, but my Output Pane is closed (most of the time)?

[eranif]

The Output Pane contains Build, Errors, Search, etc. windows. I build often and fix my syntax errors quickly so I spend maybe 5% of my time with those windows. I believe the same statistics applies to most of the other developers. Most of my time I spend with Editor writing code, or with Locals, Watches, and less with Stack, Breakpoints, etc debugging code; and I always keep the Workspace in front to navigate the files.

I made all the required changes in the trunk and I will play with it for a couple of days and I will see if I will like it

output-bar-book.png

Eran

[frank_frl]

Hi Eran,

the auto hide feature of the output pane is gone with this changes.

Frank

[eranif]

the auto hide feature of the output pane is gone with this changes.

thanks, I will look into it

Eran

[eranif]

he auto hide feature of the output pane is gone with this changes.

Fixed

Eran