Selena - Space waste

Hello Vladimir,

Space waste

So what do you suggest instead?

--
Dmitry Jemerov
Development Lead
JetBrains, Inc.
http://www.jetbrains.com/
"Develop with Pleasure!"

I would put icons vertically (including override and inherits) instead and make struts asterisk icon smaller. there is always plenty of vertical space in this case (class and methods declaration). Another approach could be to have one icon with Arrow up and down and to have a popup when clicking on it.

-1 for the popup, definitely
not sure the vertical thing would be useable either,
downsizing a bit the struts icon should still be useable though

Vladimir Goncharov wrote:

Another approach could be to have one icon with Arrow up and down and to have a popup when clicking on it.

This was discussed here some time ago. I am personally against the
Eclipse-style of merging the icons into one. I need to see all the
meanings for some source line (e.g. it is breakpointed, bookmarked,
whatever else), instead of an icon that tells me absolutely nothing. It
is my very own personal opinion, of course.
I also would like to have some space saved, but have on other ideas,
unfortunately..

my $0,02
Regards
George

Look at the latest version of netbeans.

I think I triggered one of the recent rounds, though it didn't go on very long (I guess thankfully). My problem (then and now) is that the gutter width is not fixed. It expands and contracts depending on the complement of icons present in any given source file.

Another idea occurred to me just now, and I don't know if it's feasible or not, but perhaps the width of the gutter could be fixed and when there are too many icons to fit in the allotted space, allow them to spill onto the text area with translucency. That would, of course, create the problem of a conflict in handling a click: Does it go to the icon or the text beneath? You'd have to resolve that, somehow (perhaps with one or more modifier keys to click the icons).

Alternately, the translucent icons could overflow left. Depending on what's there, that may or may not be less of a problem, but in general it would still exist.

Just something to think about.


Randall Schulz

This could cause problems of context, as noted.

How about using the eclipse combined icon types but with dropdown menus when click context is uncertain.

This is sort of done in the toolwindows when there isnt enough space to show all the buttons (actually not really the same thing at all but ...).

Again, not sure if this is the optimal solution but it shows all the information in a compact form and you still only need to click once to get where you want to go if done properly.

-1 as well for the popup or any type of merged icons (unless there was an option to determine if separate gutter icons or combined icons were used)

George Talev wrote:
>I need to see all the meanings for some source
>line (e.g. it is breakpointed, bookmarked,
>whatever else), instead of an icon that tells
>me absolutely nothing.

Well Said! +100 One of my biggest annoyances with eclipse is that icon that tells me nothing.

I understand people's concern about wasted space and desire to optimize editing real estate; but it does need to be balanced with the need for quick and easy access to information. Unfortunately people differ on how much they lean towards one side or the other in that balancing act. So perhaps an option to either use the (current) individual icons in the gutter or "stacked" icons would be the best approach.

-1 for vertical aligning the icons because otherwise they would seem to
belong to a different line

-0.1 for the popup

BTW, Netbeans have this issue discussed on their website years ago and IIRC,
they added an option so the user can decide.