layer dialog change dimensions

[Etienne]

When you expand the layer dialog in the panel, it lose its dimensions if you add an other dialog to the panel (e.g. color editing or alignment).

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

Confirmed on Windows XP, Inkscape trunk revision 10145.
Adding (or removing) a dialog in the dock expands it horizontally (to fit the largest dialog) and vertically, but also shrink the previously docked dialogs to their minimum vertical size.

[Michael-gr (grosberg-michael)]

I would like to add my support for fixing this bug. I rarely work with less than 3-4 layers and the layers dialog shrinks to show 2 layers almost any time I make any change to the dock - add a panel, switch tabs, anything really. I find myself fiddling with the UI instead of drawing freely.

This is how I suggest solving it:
1 - lock the layer size so that only user interaction can change it.
2 - if possible resize by increments of one row height so you don't have text rows cut off.
3 - make it possible to resize it even if the entire height of the dock is filled with panels. currently if you have too many panels docked you can't resize it at all.

There's another issue that's beyond the scope of this bug but is relevant - some panels should have a fixed height. The fill&stroke panel for example - you can stretch it but there's nothing to fill the newly created space with. same goes for icon preview, align etc. Why not have them in a fixed size?