In Fluency, the Properties Panel has two tabs to allow the user to switch views from "Advanced Properties" to "Categories" view. The problem is, however, that you can have both views up and have to click on one view to deselect it. I traced this functionality down to the PropertySheetPage.class in Eclipse. It seems that this is a wierd Eclipse bug rather than a Fluency problem.
When in Eclipse, if you bring up the Properties panel, you can, in fact, select both. It seems that the Advanced Properties view is the default, and does not actually change anything when you click on it. The only change occurs when you select or deselect the Categories view. If both buttons are pressed, then the Categories view shows.
The classes that control the toggle do not check for the state of the other button. I will extend the classes so that this funcionality is included and point all Fluency classes to use them. The only problem there is that I may need to extend a lot of Fluency classes as well so that they point to the right class when invoking their methods.
This bug may just be best left for the developers of Eclipse.
Comments (3)
Nov 02, 2005
Nate Johnson says:
there are a lot of places in the eclipse views, like these "filter" buttons in p...there are a lot of places in the eclipse views, like these "filter" buttons in properties, that are just not taken advantage of in fluency. it would be nice if we could remove them if they are not used, but that might not be possible in all cases... other times we might want to implement the functionality if it makes the user's life easier. for this particular issue, i think the ultimate goal is to remove the entire properties palette so that users are not constantly going back and forth when changing widgets... that means we need new ways to set these properties on widgets right in the layout and linkage editors. one example would be to just start typing on a button to change its label.
Nov 02, 2005
Carrie Ganote says:
Ahh, ok. A nice way to add this feature would be to take out the Properties pane...Ahh, ok.
A nice way to add this feature would be to take out the Properties panel, and instead, allow right-click options on added widgets.
Then you could right-click and select "Properties" which would bring up this panel as a free box, like manipulating css in Dreamweaver. That way you could also add things such as "delete" in the right click menu, to allow users to do this instead of highlighting the widget and then clicking the delete button or even dragging the widget to the trash can...
Nov 02, 2005
whoknows says:
that's a nice idea. ultimately i'd like us to head toward the 'visual paradigm' ...that's a nice idea. ultimately i'd like us to head toward the 'visual paradigm' style of an entirely mouse-aware views, as illustrated in the flash movie i posted earlier:
http://69.57.142.74/websiteimages/images/indexroadmap.swf
(original site: http://www.visual-paradigm.com/)
however, for now i prefer your suggestion to the horror we have now of having to move the mouse all the way over to the flyouts, have them pop out, slect something, then drag it over to the view. that just sucks.