The Preference Page needs work

A forum for research and development of the user interface of FreeCAD
Forum rules
Be nice to others! Respect the FreeCAD code of conduct!
Post Reply
User avatar
sliptonic
Veteran
Posts: 3457
Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2011 10:46 pm
Location: Columbia, Missouri
Contact:

The Preference Page needs work

Post by sliptonic »

Here's something that just irks me ever time I need to use it. Why do we make it so hard for users to change unit schema?
2022-08-03_14-48.png
2022-08-03_14-48.png (22 KiB) Viewed 1558 times
I created an issue to discuss this. I'm not proposing any new functionality. We can make new user transition a lot easier just by rearranging the current preference groups into a sane system.

If you guys have some thoughts about this, please comment on the issue.
heda
Veteran
Posts: 1348
Joined: Sat Dec 12, 2015 5:49 pm

Re: The Preference Page needs work

Post by heda »

for discoverability one way could be to make it 2 rows (which apparently some people frown upon, but its a heck lot better than not seeing it imho)

https://forum.qt.io/topic/94815/qtabwid ... tiple-rows

or make those scroll widgets more pronounced, on some os/styles they are very hard to see, like in your picture.
User avatar
adrianinsaval
Veteran
Posts: 5541
Joined: Thu Apr 05, 2018 5:15 pm

Re: The Preference Page needs work

Post by adrianinsaval »

two rows is acceptable IMO, it wouldn't hurt to put units before other stuff though.
User avatar
obelisk79
Veteran
Posts: 1062
Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2020 9:01 pm

Re: The Preference Page needs work

Post by obelisk79 »

Just to play devil's advocate here, I think that is affected by the stylesheet. If you look at the 'no stylesheet' option, the stock fusion style has usable sized buttons.
User avatar
sliptonic
Veteran
Posts: 3457
Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2011 10:46 pm
Location: Columbia, Missouri
Contact:

Re: The Preference Page needs work

Post by sliptonic »

I wouldn't object to two rows on the Import/Export page. There's no reason to have tons of tabs on the 'General' page. 'General' is catch-all. It doesn't give the user any sense for where to find things. It needs to be broken up into some logical chunks. Once that happens, there's no need for multiple rows. Each chunk has, at most, 3 or 4 tabs.
heda
Veteran
Posts: 1348
Joined: Sat Dec 12, 2015 5:49 pm

Re: The Preference Page needs work

Post by heda »

right,

for import/export one can of course break it up into sub categories,
maybe something like
- import/export 2d
- import/export 3d
- import/export 3d-mesh

in any case, just want to say that topics like this, imho, feels spot on for something intended to be called 1.0 :-)
User avatar
sliptonic
Veteran
Posts: 3457
Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2011 10:46 pm
Location: Columbia, Missouri
Contact:

Re: The Preference Page needs work

Post by sliptonic »

heda wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 11:36 pm right,

for import/export one can of course break it up into sub categories,
maybe something like
- import/export 2d
- import/export 3d
- import/export 3d-mesh

in any case, just want to say that topics like this, imho, feels spot on for something intended to be called 1.0 :-)
That's a good idea on the import/export stuff. But let's kick that can down the road a bit and focus on the main preferences, especially the high-traffic ones.

Getting traction on pure UI/UX improvements has been tough. I suggest that we might have better luck working in the github issue and not talking generalities. For example, it might be helpful to first mock up a layout for the whole preference section, Then break it down into some incremental units of work.
user1234
Veteran
Posts: 3345
Joined: Mon Jul 11, 2016 5:08 pm

Re: The Preference Page needs work

Post by user1234 »

Not much, but at least something, which annoyed me much.

https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/pull/7312


Greetings
user1234
User avatar
MisterMaker
Posts: 739
Joined: Mon Sep 21, 2020 7:41 am

Re: The Preference Page needs work

Post by MisterMaker »

If you want to fix the arrows... being tiny and the text being big, use my Extreme prodark theme.
I also proposed a fix for this here: ProDark topic.
User avatar
onekk
Veteran
Posts: 6146
Joined: Sat Jan 17, 2015 7:48 am
Contact:

Re: The Preference Page needs work

Post by onekk »

Probably moving "Editor Tab" and "Macro Tab" from the "General" Section will make some room.

If not put them in separate pages maybe creating a "python related" "section" that will group "Editor" "Python Console" and "Macro" Tabs, nut probably there will be some problem to find an Adequate name.

Regards

Carlo D.
GitHub page: https://github.com/onekk/freecad-doc.
- In deep articles on FreeCAD.
- Learning how to model with scripting.
- Various other stuffs.

Blog: https://okkmkblog.wordpress.com/
Post Reply