On 22.03.2011 02:13, Clemens wrote:
On Mon, 21 Mar 2011 22:56:27 +1300, Stephan Assmus <superstippi@xxxxxx> wrote:Like I said, I don't agree at all. I think the space used is completely a non-issue. In Tracker, I want to see as much information as possible in list mode, and bigger icons would increase the line-height too much. Still, I think the 16x16 icons are so small, for many icons they are not so usable, because the contents are barely distinguishable. In a tool bar on the other hand, there is only a single line, a few pixels more or less are not important and tackling other problems can take priority: 1) The icons can be more distinguishable, less blurry. 2) Unlike in Tracker, where there is the whole file name contributing to the click target size, the icon is just by itself the click target. 16x16 icons like in Pe are not as usable. Of course in a perfect world, the wholeGUI including the icons would scale with the font-size that the user configures. At the same time, I think the 22x22 icons are a good click target size for the default font-size in Haiku. So even when I would im plement a scalable tool bar size, I would implement the same size as a match for the default font size. Maybe I would try 20x20 as well, but below that the draw-backs certainly outweight the benefits. All in all, when I look at ShowImage now, or WebPositive, I don't have any issue with the icon size at all, I think the space used by the tool bar is completely a non-issue compared to making the icons a usable click target size and recognizable.In case of tracker I meant the navigator bar which is switched off by default. Here, the path text box is pretty much aligned with the icons in vertical direction and there is almost no vertical space. This looks more pleasant than in WebPositive. As others already said the main problem is the additional space in vertical direction. I also took a look at other toolbar implementation, they using almost no vertical and just a small horizontal space... Right, in the best case the toolbar should be somehow scalable. Anyway I never had issues to click or recognise a button in the existing toolbars. Another problem is that at the moment larger icons in single applications are inconsistent with the rest of the system (at least with tracker and deskbar which are the main interface). For example, I also don't like the huge Mail toolbar, it does not looks like the rest of the system. I don't want to fight about single pixels in an application in the first place, that's not my point. Your arguments are valid larger icons looks better and could be more meaningful. What I'm more worried about is that we use more and more space that is missing somewhere else later. For example, when I switch back from linux to haiku I always wondering how much space I have in Haiku, my monitor seems to have grown during the reboot! I'm able to open more windows in parallel on the same workspace compared to the linux desktops. Windows in Haiku are very compact e.g. this makes drag'n drop much easier. Using d'n d between multiple gnome/kde filemangers is much harder than in haiku. I just compared the sizes and there is no big different between linux and haiku filemanagers! but Haiku still feels much better. Screen space always stays precious, also with large monitors you get to a point where too many windows are open. In this case window operations can we very tedious, especially if windows overlapping crucial parts of another window. Smaller windows postpone overlapping a bit / make it easier to solve it. In the same way, IMHO the default layout spacing is to big. For example, the people app is huge at the moment and a lot of space is unused. At least the spacing for "rows" in an interface should be smaller, e.g. in normal text the relative spacing between lines is much smaller than the line spacing in our layouts... Hope this sounds not too offensive, should be a constructive discussion :-)
No it's fine, you do have a point. I feel the same when switching from Linux to Haiku, Haiku is a lot more compact. I'll see about removing too much extra vertical space in ShowImage and we should indeed have a distinction between default horizontal and vertical spacing. As for Mail, I'd like to use zuMi's icons for that, too. He's done a great many of the tool bar icons already and they are all 22x22 for the moment. All the mail icons are already done and a whole bunch more.
Best regards, -Stephan