These docked dialogs should remember their size

[Traumflug]

Docked dialogs are a nice feature, thanks for writing the code.

What I like not so much about them, is, that they cover some 50% of the available screen real estate. Way too much.

Then, one can make them smaller nicely. And here comes the bug/feature request: sizes of these panels should be remembered between application launches. Just open them at the same size next time. If a user had choosen to stuff them entirely away, make them stuffed away on next launch.

Having this done automatically is very intuitive and makes any menu topic or preferences entry obsolete. Less clutter in the menus, less clutter in the preferences dialog, better user experience.

[Edward Hennessy (ehennes)]

Yes, the windows should retain their size (and visibility, if set). Gschem already has code to do this, but it is located in the base class for dialogs, which the new docked dialogs do not inherit from anymore.

I would prefer to keep the menu items to show and hide the windows in the view menu. In addition, I would like to add a menu item to show and hide the toolbar. Many applications place the same functionality there. I suspect some new users would look there, and discover the hotkeys to show and hide the windows.

Another way of preserving screen real estate includes automatically showing and hiding the sidebar. When the user types the hotkeys to edit color, for example, the sidebar opens to the color editor. When the user finishing edits (by some TBD event), then the sidebar automatically hides. Do you, or anyone else, have input regarding a feature like this?

I've got some commitments and won't be able to pick this work until mid October. In case another developer wants to work on this between now and then, I'll leave this bug unassigned until then.

[Traumflug (mah-jump-ing)]

> I would prefer to keep the menu items ...
> In addition, I would like to add a menu item ...

With each menu item added ...

... the learning curve for newbies gets steeper

... the required knowledge capacity of experienced users gets bigger

... a tutorial might be required to explain how all the items work together

... source code gets bigger

... source code gets more difficult to maintain.

Only if all these justify the benefit of four menu items, four menu items should be kept/added.

> Another way of preserving screen real estate includes automatically showing and hiding the sidebar.

Very good idea. Still more source code to maintain, but the drawbacks for users vanish.

[dmn (graahnul.grom)]

Don't know, should I file a separate bug report,
but it seems to be related.
The patch makes it possible to control visibility
of right and bottom docked dialogs at startup.
Add to ~/.gEDA/gschemrc:

(show-right-dock "on")
or:
(show-right-dock "off")

(show-bottom-dock "on")
or:
(show-bottom-dock "off")

The default is "off".

Dmitry.

[Roland Lutz (rlutz)]

fixed in 2aabd24dfb087dfe483a5c011cae2af125e81c2f

[Roland Lutz (rlutz)]

released in gEDA/gaf 1.10.0