Posted by to-b on Aug 15, 2012; 5:45pm
URL: https://forum.librecad.org/Icon-theme-tp5706838p5706966.html

Hi R. van Twisk,
sorry for the long time it took me to answer.

R. van Twisk wrote

... even after you start a action the circles and everything
else stays on the screen, this might be confusing and additionally, how do you respond to the icons when a user clicks on them, or just gray out?

I wouldn't gray out or hide the symbols. I think they should just stay on the screen and be accessible. If the user clicks on an icon to activate a new action, the old action should be ended immediately.
E.g. think of the situation that an user starts drawing a circle but then realizes that what he really needs is an arc. He would just click on the arc symbol and start drawing the arc without having to manually stop the circle drawing process first.

R. van Twisk wrote

Additional, something we must not forget is that LibreCAD is used on many computers with limited capabilities, low screen resolutions and low CPU power.
Also for that reason I would like to have the screen as simple as possible.

Of course it is very important to have a simple screen and also not to waste screen space. And not only small screen resolutions are benefiting from this.
But i think hiding most of the options and therefore jumping back and forward between different toolboxes all the time can be confusing and complicated to understand/use.

R. van Twisk wrote

I also am wondering if we can support them both somehow.

An option to have a layout that is close to the current one and leaves a little bit more space for the canvas for really low resolution screens could be to display the "tool properties" window from the PDF and the main "toolbox" from the PDF in the same dockable window. It could change when a tool is selected and have the back arrow like in LibreCad2.0. This could be an option in the properties that people with very low screen resolutions could activate. While users with higher (normal) resolution displays could have them displayed both at the same time.

BigAl wrote

Hi to-b,

You have my vote.

Hi BigAl,
thanks for your support, but at the end of the day it's the decision of the developers and they should be doing what they feel most confident with. I'm only trying to help them with some ideas for the great work they are doing.
cheers,
to-b