<jdahlin> seth!
<jdahlin> seth: I need some advise!
<seth> hi jdahlin!
<seth> What's up?
* jdahlin is hacking on a menueditor
<seth> cool :)
<jdahlin> seth: do you have any ui suggestions for it
<jdahlin> eg, adding, removing and rearranging menus and menuitems
<seth> Yup :)
<seth> Just provide the ability to turn items on/off
<seth> And then allow adding new menu items
<jdahlin> currently I'm playing with a context menu, for adding and removing
<jdahlin> on and off?
<seth> Visible vs. Not
<seth> I think re-arranging menus, etc is pretty silly fairly obscure behavior
<seth> Mostly the value is to sysadmins
<jdahlin> oh, this is for a gui designer
<seth> oh, heh
<jdahlin> not for the panel
<seth> :)
<seth> No wonder that was confusing *grin*
<jdahlin> slightly different use case :-)
<seth> You must have been wondering what I was smoking
<jdahlin> yeah
* jdahlin does not care too much about a menu editor for the panel
<jdahlin> seth: so, back to the subject
<seth> yup
<jdahlin> do you think a popup menu is worth it?
<seth> I don't have a prepared response for what you're doing, so lemme think a second
<seth> A popup menu?
<jdahlin> eg, right clicking on an entry
<jdahlin> where you can remove an entry or add a new one
<jdahlin> perhaps some other things too
<jdahlin> I fear dnd.
<seth> You are currently using a tree view?
<jdahlin> yeah
<jdahlin> but I'd prefer having a WYSIWYG style editor
<jdahlin> of course, if you have a better idea..
<seth> I'm not sure a WYSIWYG editor would really be much better
<seth> Tree view is probably pretty ok
<jdahlin> aka glade-2?
<jdahlin> that's a horribly difficult interface to learn and use
<seth> Yeah, I agere
<seth> But the devil is in the details
<jdahlin> how is interface builder doing menus?
<seth> hm, I don't know actually
<seth> I can check it out for you on monday maybe
<seth> Assuming dfong is at work
<seth> I would suggest doing something semi-schematic
<jdahlin> that'd be great
<seth> So represent items sort of visually
<seth> e.g. don't show U_nderline Crap
<jdahlin> remember that actions needs to be represented too
<seth> And show separators as separators
<seth> Actions?
<jdahlin> yeah
<seth> As in GTK ui manager stuff?
<jdahlin> right
<jdahlin> eg, shared between toolbars and menubars
<jdahlin> actually, gazpacho does not support normal menubars and toolbars, only ones created by uimanager
<seth> OK, so one thing you can do that'd be nice is to make stock items have stock actions
<seth> So you don't have to worry about actions and connecting them with toolbar items when you use a stock item
<jdahlin> nod.
<jdahlin> I think actions should be transparent
<jdahlin> so when you add something to a toolbar or menubar, an action is created
<seth> You could consider just having the menubar be defined
<jdahlin> and later you can connect different buttons and entries to the same action
<seth> And then letting people select menu items to also add to the toolbar
<seth> It requires that toolbar be a subset of menus, but that is good UI practice anyway
<jdahlin> what about ordering in the toolbar?
<jdahlin> multiple toolbars, separators?
<seth> Do it epiphany style
<seth> Just let people drag them around
<seth> Actually
<seth> It'd be *really* cool if gazpacho could somehow let people create apps with a built-in toolbar editor
<seth> Like epiphanies
<jdahlin> not sure about that
<jdahlin> a user interface is a lot more complex than the subset the epiphany toolbar supports
<seth> In what sense?
<seth> sorry, wasn't clear
<jdahlin> boxes, and layout in general
<seth> yeah, no no
<seth> I was talking about something different :)
<jdahlin> ah
<seth> It'd be cool if GTK+ apps had a stock "toolbar editor" built in to them
<jdahlin> now I got you
<seth> Such as epiphany's
<jdahlin> :-)
<jdahlin> yeah, it needs to go into gtk+ at some point
<jdahlin> its actually really polished
<seth> Its a liiiitle unclear how to remove toolbars
<seth> But otherwise, yes
* seth helped marco with it
<seth> So what if the menu editor and the toolbar editor are combined
<seth> And you basically have this tree view
<seth> And you can drag items out if it into the toolbar
<seth> And re-arrange them and stuff
<seth> And drag in separators
<seth> If I had a scanner I could do a sketch for you really quick
<seth> But none at home
<jdahlin> camera? :)
<seth> nope
* seth will try to draw something in gimp
<jdahlin> thanks
* jdahlin needs to catch some Zzz
<seth> give me a sec?
<jdahlin> sure
<seth> jdahlin: http://campd.isfuckingmetal.com/quicky.png
<seth> jdahlin: Most menu items in most menus are stock
<seth> jdahlin: So we try to make that easiest
<seth> jdahlin: And basically have a pallette of stock items on the right
<seth> jdahlin: Categorized based on the toplevel menu they usually go in (in this case "File") with a pulldown
<jdahlin> seth: right, and eventually support creating of stock icons
<jdahlin> creation
<seth> jdahlin: Yeah, and then there'll be an area (not shown) for creating your own pallette of items
<seth> Then you can drag things into the menu tree there
<seth> And arrange/indent them etc
<seth> And/or drag them into the toolbar
<seth> there'll also be a "separator" item always visible below the stock pallette
<seth> THat you can drag in at any point
<jdahlin> but don't you think its confusing to have a separate interface for designing?
<seth> Very rough
<seth> no
<jdahlin> instead of having a canvas, which looks like the real  widgets
<seth> Its more confusing figuring out how to overload the menus themselves
<jdahlin> overload?
<seth> I think the impact on programmers is marginal
<seth> People have ideas how menus should behave
<seth> Changing the semantics of that so it *looks* like a menu but is editable is probably more confusing
<seth> Anyway, you can make this a lot like menus
<seth> This is a tool for programmers
<seth> I think we can make it very easy to use
<seth> But a little abstractions isn't bad
<jdahlin> indeed
<seth> Anyway, more later
<jdahlin> tna ,s
* seth has to bathroom, jdahlin has to bed :)
<jdahlin> thanks
<seth> sure thing
<seth> my pleasure
