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 :-)
