Smaller interface elements

[Łukasz Remiś]

Hi,
I'm using Inkscape 0.48.1, under Ubuntu 10.04. I would recommend making several interface elements smaller (perhaps by choosing interface size in settings). On the attached screenshot in the object settings dock there are huuugge dropdown lists and horizontal sliders. The dock can not be scaled down in width, and it takes almost half of the screen - although my resolution is not small (1440x900)

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

Thanks for your report!
Some docked dialogs are indeed very wide, particularly in translated versions.
Note that you can release the dialog, which becomes floating (see http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Anatomy.html#Anatomy-Dock)

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Known causes for increased width of (docked) dialogs:

1) Translated strings in the UI
(Fill&Stroke: labels in the notebook tabs at the top, labels for the stroke style options)
IMHO it is also part of the translators job to pay attention and find compromises if the chosen translation strongly affects the width of GUI elements.

2) Dynamic lists of gradients, patterns and markers:
(Fill&Stroke: names of gradients, patterns, markers)
Any strings in any of the tabs can increase the overall width of the dialog - also the names of (auto-generated) markers (or patterns) in the pop-up lists: open the SVG file attached to (otherwise unrelated) bug #596842 in Inkscape [1] and see how the dialog width adjusts to marker names like "sid-BAAAB2A5-C9D5-4326-B0B9-C849AE56E10A_sid-BAAAB2A5-C9D5-4326-B0B9-C849AE56E10A_2".

3) Other GUI elements:
(Fill&Stroke: lists instead of previews for resources, color wheel (bug #687655))

4) (…)

With regard to 1) and 2): Possibly dialogs/widgets/labels could have a max. width set (if current GTK+ versions permit/support it) and/or inkscape could force the use of ellipsis when translated strings or generated list items exceed the max. length (with the full string as tool tip)?

With regard to 3): There have been proposals to use different widgets for items like dashes, markers and patterns (with rows&columns) to achieve more compact interface elements with improved usability (bug #171003, bug #170390, bug #171952) and various others for the lists of gradient/gradient names.

Related recent discussion about a redesign proposal for the Fill&Stroke dialog on the mailing list:
<http://old.nabble.com/Re%3A-Mockup-for-Improvement-of-Fill-and-Stroke-Dialog-to31090310.html#a31350312>

[1] <https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/596842/+attachment/1432106/+files/SequenceFlowDefault.svg>

[Łukasz Remiś (lukas-remis)]

Perhaps possibility to change text size in all menus would help making them smaller.
The translation doesn't seem to make much change (at least Polish/English) - the elements are simillar.

In my first post I was also referring to dropdown lists - not only their width, but also height, which in my opinion is much to big. Also if you look at the buttons with icons, controling line corners and ending - those are are also way to big, bigger than the ones in right toolbar.

Same thing goes to a window controlling objects alignment and placement. Why is it so biiiigg? I'm attaching a screenshot of the same controls but from Indesign. Look how small and handy can it be.

[Łukasz Remiś (lukas-remis)]

And here is the alignment window from Inkscape.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

AFAIU the spacings and font sizes e.g. in menus are basically not set by Inkscape, they are inherited from the global GTK+ theme - i.e. your current desktop theme is responsible for them.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Attaching screenshot showing Inkscape with a custom compact GTK+ theme (based on the minimalistic theme engine 'Mist', not optimized for aesthetics or usability), to illustrate that GUI items such as fonts, spacing and margins of widgets, buttons and menus are defined in the GTK+ theme, not in Inkscape.

[Łukasz Remiś (lukas-remis)]

That is not true. For example in Glade, which is a GTK interface builder you can make almost all elements smaller. Also icons size is not defined by GTK - and therefor I attached screenshots showing same controllers in Inkscape and Indesign.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

> Also icons size is not defined by GTK

Not? My ~/.gtkrc-2.0 sets the icons size for Inkscape:
gtk-icon-sizes = "gtk-dialog=32,32:gtk-button=16,16:gtk-large-toolbar=24,24:gtk-small-toolbar=16,16:gtk-menu=16,16:inkscape-decoration=12,12"

If I change those, Inkscape scales the icon sizes accordingly.

[Łukasz Remiś (lukas-remis)]

All buttons and icons size can be defined when designing the interface.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Don't misunderstand my comments - personally I do prefer much more compact interfaces (likely also because I usually work on a laptop with a rather small 15" screen). I'm not objecting your feature request, but probably Inkscape (or any application) needs to set defaults which scale equally well on laptops and on larger 27" monitors.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

i.e. I'm for example more concerned about what actually enforces a minimal width of the dialog (see attached screenshot of a ridiculously larger minimal width of the Fill&Stroke dialog (contributing: translated labels, list item built dynamically from the current document)).t