XYplorer Beta Club

ale wrote:
If we explore other ideas/positions? please look for example something like this
http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/6504 ... ht007x.png

and would work also for people without tabs
http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/1484 ... ght008.png

it might be customizable as requested
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/5341 ... ght009.png

I can't say I'm a fan of the line being below the column headers. It just looks out of place. Above the column headers and below the tab bar seems to be... cleaner. That's the best way I can phrase it at the moment.

Just had a look at Ale's latest idea - not bad at all - only slight worry is that it will cause the list (files) to shift down slightly (even if only by a pixel or two).

With all these pane highlighting ideas my one slight concern is that there is no shifting of other interface elements to accomodate (as this would get extremely distracting when flipping between panes).

phatmankerr wrote:Just had a look at Ale's latest idea - not bad at all - only slight worry is that it will cause the list (files) to shift down slightly (even if only by a pixel or two).
With all these pane highlighting ideas my one slight concern is that there is no shifting of other interface elements to accomodate (as this would get extremely distracting when flipping between panes).

Yes I was thinking to list shifting too, the picture in fact need more tweaking for the problem and so the colors, I'm not 100% satisfied, but it was just to see what other people think. I absolutely agree we need to avoid any form of shifting. In fact for example in Firefox my tab bar is always on even with one tab exactly to avoid interface shifting.

I want to say, I'm not pushing a solution or another!, but I thought looking at pictures is better than talking about this question and may bring constructive criticism

ale,

Thanks for all your pic examples - it makes it much easier to visualize what any subsequent solution will look like (depending on which way Don decides to go).

If you come up with any more I would personally like to see them.

And I am exactly the same - will always have tab bars showing in tabbed apps (even with just one tab showing) to avoid the annoying shift of the main window.

phatmankerr wrote:ale,

Thanks for all your pic examples - it makes it much easier to visualize what any subsequent solution will look like (depending on which way Don decides to go).

Agreed! Thanks much!

I like it but with the limitations I said earlier, in that I'd like to be able to define the thinkness range minimally, such as 2-6 pixels, etc. so that I could give up a few list pixels to make it easier to see.

If the same area that the stripe uses in the inactive pane is kept the color of the approp background, then the list shouldn't shift up-down when switching, right?

If it were above the col headers or below, it doesn't really matter much to me...

But...I would still love to be able to do a x2 style background color, and that might also help any converts from that product style adapt to XY better, IMO.

How about the line at the bottom of the list? No problems with shifting then.

Or...

A line in both the active and inactive panes (different colours obviously), again, no shifting problems.

Gandolf wrote:How about the line at the bottom of the list? No problems with shifting then.

True, no shift issue...however, I think it could be visually a problem as one might then have to look at top and bottom to see which tab and pane are active.

A line in both the active and inactive panes (different colours obviously), again, no shifting problems.

That's exactly what I mentioned in my prior post...

Mocking on... this is roughly my vision of the (clickable) breadcrumb with configurable fore/back colors for active/inactive pane, and of course optional (tabs+breadcrumb, or either one, or none). I admit it looks a bit loaded when you have all elements visible, but nobody forces you to show them all.

PS: having the text in bold and white on a darker backgound might look better... (but bold = less space)

Don, based on that sample, (which looks quite good, BTW), here's another thought: Could the column header be used as the colored element to mark active/inactive pane?

j_c_hallgren wrote:Don, based on that sample, (which looks quite good, BTW), here's another thought: Could the column header be used as the colored element to mark active/inactive pane?

Would not work for non-details views...

admin wrote:Would not work for non-details views...

DUH! I'm so used to being in details view as I use it 99.5%+ of the time that I almost forget how other views look...

admin wrote:What's the first / second / both panes flexible? That's the behavior when resizing the list panes. I know that a better wording is due. Any ideas?

Sorry, but I still don't get what this is meant to do...so can't come up with better wording yet...I've tried a few things and don't see what it really does...maybe I'm having a bad day?

j_c_hallgren wrote:

admin wrote:What's the first / second / both panes flexible? That's the behavior when resizing the list panes. I know that a better wording is due. Any ideas?

Sorry, but I still don't get what this is meant to do...so can't come up with better wording yet...I've tried a few things and don't see what it really does...maybe I'm having a bad day?

Hello, click the left or right border of XY window or the bottom left or bottom right corner of the window and drag to resize, then you'll see the panes resizing is different with the three options

Maybe not needed anymore with pane headers and so on... (I like Don mockup!) but I'll share a last version of the "line" I did for today. You may always find something useful in it

admin wrote:
Mocking on... this is roughly my vision of the (clickable) breadcrumb with configurable fore/back colors for active/inactive pane, and of course optional (tabs+breadcrumb, or either one, or none). I admit it looks a bit loaded when you have all elements visible, but nobody forces you to show them all.

The shaded header is exactly what PowerDesk uses, and it works wonderfully. I didn't think that was a good idea for XY, however, because since you use a tab bar, the header would have to be added on, taking up additional real estate - which people seem to try to avoid.

Even if you went with this approach, I would recommend that you enable the line below the tab bar (but above the column headers) if users disable the header bar. It would give you the focus functionality while only taking up one or two pixels of height.