LC 8 Property Inspector

[J. Landman Gay]

On 10/8/2015 10:36 AM, Trevor DeVore wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 8, 2015 at 11:16 AM, Rick Harrison <harrison at all-auctions.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> I looked at the differences in these inspectors
>> and I came to the conclusion that the new
>> version is not an improvement.  What was
>> clear and everyone was used to in the old
>> version with the words has now been replaced
>> with smaller icons in the new version.
>>
>> While I’m sure we will adjust eventually to
>> the new version, more silly icons isn’t what
>> we need.  The human brain has to do the
>> translation. I’m sure a text tool tip will magically
>> appear to tell us what the icon means after
>> a short delay, (I hope), but it won’t speed
>> along productivity for anyone.
>>
>
> Rick,
>
> I've actually found the new interface to be much more productive. I always
> found that using an option menu to switch property inspector panes was
> tedious as it required multiple clicks. Switching around between panes in
> the inspector is much quicker now.
>

I have to mostly agree with Trevor here. The very first property 
inspector had tabs for navigating panes and it was much faster and 
easier to use. But as new panes were added there was no longer enough 
horizontal space so tabs were replaced by the option menu. This has 
always been awkward to use and there were some complaints about it at 
first. Icons allow us to return to the original quick navigation we used 
to have, so I'm in favor of them -- provisionally.

But as Rick said, it's not always easy to identify icons. Tooltips are a 
must until we learn what they are. But even better would be icons with 
labels, like the IDE toolbar has.

-- 
Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com