[josm-dev] Dynamic buttons in side menus

[Paul Hartmann]

On 10/15/2011 05:50 PM, Dirk Stöcker wrote:
> On Sat, 15 Oct 2011, Ilya Zverev wrote:
> 
>> On Sat, 15 Oct 2011 17:11:42 +0300, Komяpa wrote:
>>>  I got used to dynamic buttons almost immediately. Just clicked where
>>>  they usually were, and they appeared right under mouse cursor.
>>
>> The key word being "usually were". New users will feel a big WTF not
>> seeing any buttons in those panels, and they won't get used to it
>> (because why should they? there's simple and obvious potlatch). I too
>> have 13whatever by 768 screen, and 4-5 panels enabled - and there's
>> enough space. Even if it weren't, as I said, the panels are there not
>> to watch, but to edit, and in either case one has to scroll the list.
>> But now it is not as obvious: you see the line, but you can't get to
>> it. You need a button, but you don't see it. The option undoubtely is
>> useful for some, but it is not good UI decision, so I propose to turn
>> it off by default, not remove.
> 
> Wow, the same discussion as for virtual nodes. As I was unsure whether
> this should be default or now it was not default for a longer time in
> which I had a lot of people testing this. None of them really
> complained, but they like the additional freedom of the display in the
> right side.

The right hand side now looks more clearly arranged and uncluttered -
this is one positive thing I can say about these dynamic buttons.

Still, there is a serious flaw in the design: The visible space shrinks,
as soon as you hover above the dialogue. This is very irritating when
you don't intend to use the buttons, but try to interact with the list
entries directly.

E.g. say, there are three layers displayed in the layer dialogue and the
height is adjusted such that all three entries just fit in the list.
Now you like to hide the 3rd layer and attempt to click on the eye
symbol of that layer. But as soon as the mouse cursor reaches the icon,
it gets covered by the button row.

For the properties dialogue, you don't need the buttons at all. Alt-B
(now Alt-A) adds a new tag, double click edits it and click del-key
removes a tag. So in this case, the button row just gets in the way.

One possible solution would be to get rid of the buttons completely.
E.g. tag editing could be like in the relation editor (and Potlatch 2's
advanced tagging mode).

Paul

PS: For reference, here is the corresponding trac ticket:
http://josm.openstreetmap.de/ticket/6731