small screens: widgets and functionalities unaccessible

[KFJ]

I noticed this behaviour in Pre-Release 2010.5.0.b5a907b23b85, self-built on Kubuntu 10.10. It seems that entering numbers in the yaw, pitch and roll fields in the move/drag tab of the openGL preview has no effect any more.

[KFJ (kfj)]

ooops... just noticed what the problem is: The 'apply' field next to the numerical entries. Somehow the layout of the window is changed, and this field was invisible, even though I was working in full-screen mode. My screen is only 1024X768, so most people probably wouldn't notice. When I changed to non-fullscreen mode and made the window wider than 1024, the 'apply' button came back into view, and functions as normal. Anyway, I feel that parts of the UI shouldn't simply disappear from the screen, but rather be shoved together so they're all still accessible.

Kay

[Yuv (yuv)]

yes, this is very much like bug 679338 and we should make Hugin usable on these kind of display

[KFJ (kfj)]

Yuv, thanks for changing the summary. I didn't know this could be done, otherwise I'd have done so myself (if it's a thing mere users can do) when I noticed what bugged me. While pointing out problems with small screens, let me add that the stitcher tab's lower section, containing the processing options (like, nona parameters) is also off-screen on my 1024X768. This is technically still valid, since there is a scroll bar to the right so the fields are still reachable, but it's still a nuisance, and I find myself scratching my head every time I want to switch from cropped TIFF to non-cropped until I remember that some part of the tab can only be accessed by scrolling. If parts of the UI have to be hidden thusly, maybe some other part of the stitcher tab would be better off-screen... but really, I wouldn't mind things being squashed a bit if that would put everything inside the tab.

Kay

[Yuv (yuv)]

Hi Kay,

Yes you can. Everything that has a small yellow round button you can edit.

I have resized Hugin to the minimum size permitted on my platform (Kubuntu). It is 788x482 including the window decoration / border.

At that size:
* the Assistant tab is useless (cur away at the description of the second step and can't reach the Create Panorama button, not even by scrolling)
* the Images tab is useless (can't select individual images and the layout is mangled up)
* the Camera and Lens tab is barely usable (only one line for the list; Camera Response section of Photometric sub-tab unreachable)
* the Crop tab is OK
* in the Mask tab the lists (Number of Masks and Mask Types) are unaccessible
* in the Control Points tab the auto-estimate checkbox is unaccessible
* the Optimizer tab is OK (with vertical scrolling)
* the Exposure tab is OK (with vertical and horizontal scrolling - the horizontal scrolling can and should be removed)
* the Stitcher tab is OK (with vertical scrolling)

The Preferences window resizes to a minimum dimension of 675x628. Everything is useful at that dimension and there is even some place to reduce the height.

The Fast Preview window resizes to 928x252 (and the Apply button that disappeared on you seems to be the limiting factor to horizontal shrinking). All the tabbed functions are accessible, but the preview and the overview are useless at that size.

The above description of the current state of affairs lead me to the conclusion that <b>the current layout of Hugin is 'broken'</b>. We need decisions and consistency about the user interface layout.

Here is what I would suggest:
1. Decide a minimum screen size at which the application is functional.
2. Decide a consistent way of paging the information that can't be fit in such minimum screen size - can be vertical scrolling, can be sub-tabbing, can be anything else we have not seen yet
3. Document the above decisions and enact them as project policies
4. Implement the above decisions consistently across windows and tabs.

Given the current hardware trends, I would suggest:
1. 800x480 minimum screen size
2. vertical scrolling within the tab (not so cool for mouse users, but look at tablets)

Yuv

[tmodes (tmodes)]

I can not confirm that behaviour on Windows.
Minimum window size is 900x675. But even with monitor resolution of 800x600 most functions are still accessible.

* the Assistant tab, Camera and lens tab, crop tab and mask tab are ok. All buttons and controls are visible and can be reached. Optimizer, exposure and stitcher tab are okay (with scrolling).
* in the Images tab only celeste and cpclean buttons can not be accessed (but become accessible with full screen mode).
* fast preview window: only roll angle and apply button are not accessible.

So this seems to be mainly a linux problem, where a lot of space is wasted, because on window .

[Bruno Postle (brunopostle)]

I can actually use Hugin on the 800x480 screen of the original asus eee (by using alt drag to pan around the GUI), but they don't sell this model anymore, most netbook class machines these days are 1024x800 or 1024x768. I still encounter projectors (beamers) that are working at 1024x768.

It would be nice if Hugin in F11 full screen mode fitted into 1024x768 on all platforms.

[Yuv (yuv)]

Actually what I would like to see is the whole interface fitting into an 800x480 display without drag-panning.

The target devices are Android tablets. Android is Linux based and a port of Hugin to Android is not so far fetched. The ARM CPUs are competitive against Intel Atom, and the high end tablets/smartphones have a GPU too.

Most netbook-class machines have 1024x600 (I guess the x800 is a typo).

The large tablets are 1024x600 as well. The small ones like the ViewSonic ViewPad 7 are 800x480, which is also what the current high-end Android smartphones do.

[Yuv (yuv)]

Agree with Thomas that there is a lot of screen waste on Linux. I used to complain a lot about Ubuntu. Kubuntu is slightly better but obviously not yet as good as Windows. On the other hand 900x675 seems a too large (and arbitrary) minimum window size to me. Where do you get this limit from?