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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Re: Resizeable Dialogs, Layout & Co.
From:       "Friedrich W. H. Kossebau" <Friedrich.W.H () Kossebau ! de>
Date:       2001-01-04 20:48:50
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Espen Sand wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 04 Jan 2001, Friedrich W. H. Kossebau wrote:
> >
> > Great. I looked it up and found out there has already been someone
> > thinking about that, also about types of spacings. And you are right at
> > least in KDE 2.0.0 it is hardcoded setting both to "6".
> 
> They are hardcoded to 6 now (it has been like that for a year ++) I made these
> functions so that it would be a simple task to make this configurable later by
> reading settings from a control center module. It just has not been done yet
> (perhaps because most people are happy with the value of 6).

Alright. I am not happy :-) And I think these hints are not often used
by now. I scanned kdebase 2.0.0 with kfind for *.cpp-files with
"Dialog", found 117, "marginHint", found 47, and "spacingHint", found
54. The hints are used in kcontrol but in almost no other apps. I looked
at kmenuedit which uses them in both tabs and found that I personally
right there would like to make the spacing larger. And the margin in the
controlcenter does not satisfy me in the same way.

Maybe it is the not so widely spread use of the hints why most people
seem to be happy...

Anyway: you wouldn't have prepared this if you don't think this to be a
good thing, would you ;-)

But why did you only define two types of spacings? I think there could
be some more. I think it is like in character spacings in written stuff.
There is a different spacing between words than between sentences (at
least in english style). And a different spacing between paragraphs and
a paragraph and a titel. All to help the eyes better catch the things. 

Something like this could be applied to dialogs in my opinion. One often
used eye help is to border things that belong together by a
frame/groupbox. In these groups there might be further grouping by
inserted spacing or separator. In my opinion these are different
categories that all might use a different spacing.

I haven't worked that out right now but I think this is something where
the style guide could be extended: how to group what. Not to think of
which control widget use for what (think of sliders vc. input field or
combination). But this later.

During next or overnext weekend I will try to take some time and state
which ways dialogs are layouted right now, then developing a layout
style guide to have it discuss here.

> > So it needs someone to do the work to integrate this into the
> > controlcenter and to think about a way where to store this information
> > and how make it accessible to KDialog (and others). Maybe it should be
> > treated the way the information about the set font is treated.
> >
> > The module in the control center could be in the style of the color
> > module to preview the look. Or the font, color and sizing could be
> > integrated in one module as it would be nice to have a preview of all
> > togheter.
> >

Hm, maybe that someone could become me :-) I hope I can fulfil this
plan. 

Friedrich

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