Toolbar should dock to screen edge

[Iain Dalton-2]

The toolbar should dock to the screen edge such that the user can throw the
mouse to the edge and click to select a tool.

See the answer to question 2 on Tog's "Quiz Designed to Give You Fitts"
(http://www.asktog.com/columns/022DesignedToGiveFitts.html).

Assuming people agree, is this possible without hacking the window
manager?

_______________________________________________
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developer@...
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer

[peter sikking]

Iain Dalton wrote:

> The toolbar should dock to the screen edge such that the user can  
> throw the
> mouse to the edge and click to select a tool.
>
> See the answer to question 2 on Tog's "Quiz Designed to Give You  
> Fitts"
> (http://www.asktog.com/columns/022DesignedToGiveFitts.html).

nice to see you refer to my then hero and now colleague Bruce  
Tognazzini.
'Tog on interface' was my first grounding in interaction design, about
17 years ago, and I have not looked back...

> Assuming people agree, is this possible without hacking the window
> manager?


maybe it is simply too early to spend effort on this. GIMP currently
ships with a 6-column toolbox, (informally) kept that wide by the
tool options. This gives you an edge speed-up for 1 in 6 tools.

I am working on the long term UI goal to have GIMP ship with a 2-column
toolbox, which on larger screens could be stretched to single-column.
this includes reducing the overall number of tools and one of the most
challenging interaction design problems of GIMP: what to do with the
tool options.

once we get there, it pays to discuss the edge speed-up.

     --ps

         founder + principal interaction architect
             man + machine interface works

         http://mmiworks.net/blog : on interaction architecture



_______________________________________________
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developer@...
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer

[David Gowers]

Hi peter,

On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 8:34 PM, peter sikking<peter@...> wrote:
> maybe it is simply too early to spend effort on this. GIMP currently
> ships with a 6-column toolbox, (informally) kept that wide by the
> tool options. This gives you an edge speed-up for 1 in 6 tools.
How? In all configurations I have tested, padding prevents this: i
must jump to the edge then slide back a little in order to click on
the tool icon rather than a little padding pixel column of the
toolbox.

>
> I am working on the long term UI goal to have GIMP ship with a 2-column
> toolbox, which on larger screens could be stretched to single-column.
> this includes reducing the overall number of tools and one of the most
> challenging interaction design problems of GIMP: what to do with the
> tool options.
Good to hear.

David
_______________________________________________
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developer@...
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer

[Henk Boom-2]

2009/6/15 David Gowers <00ai99@...>:

> Hi peter,
>
> On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 8:34 PM, peter sikking<peter@...> wrote:
>> maybe it is simply too early to spend effort on this. GIMP currently
>> ships with a 6-column toolbox, (informally) kept that wide by the
>> tool options. This gives you an edge speed-up for 1 in 6 tools.
> How? In all configurations I have tested, padding prevents this: i
> must jump to the edge then slide back a little in order to click on
> the tool icon rather than a little padding pixel column of the
> toolbox.

I assume he meant that this _would_ give you a 1 in 6 tool speedup if
edge docking was implemented.

    Henk
_______________________________________________
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developer@...
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer

[peter sikking]

David Gowers wrote:

> peter wrote:
>> maybe it is simply too early to spend effort on this. GIMP currently
>> ships with a 6-column toolbox, (informally) kept that wide by the
>> tool options. This gives you an edge speed-up for 1 in 6 tools.
> How?

let me rephrase what I really meant:

"if we would make the effort to make the tool column on the screen edge
press-able on the pixels on the screen edge, then still only 1 in 6  
tools
would have this edge speed-up."

> In all configurations I have tested, padding prevents this: i
> must jump to the edge then slide back a little in order to click on
> the tool icon rather than a little padding pixel column of the
> toolbox.


I was not even suggesting that users DIY this today by simply moving
their toolbox slightly off-screen. But yes, my window manager allows me
to manoeuvre part of the window off-screen.

     --ps

         founder + principal interaction architect
             man + machine interface works

         http://mmiworks.net/blog : on interaction architecture



_______________________________________________
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developer@...
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer

Hello Iain,

> The toolbar should dock to the screen edge

shouldn't that be the window manager's job?
Still I'm looking forward to more ideas from Peter (and maybe other UI
designers) :)

Daniel


_______________________________________________
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developer@...
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer