LC 8 Property Inspector

[Richard Gaskin]

Ali Lloyd wrote:

 > Labelled icons are also possible - we could potentially have a
 > preference setting for one, the other, or both.

Inspectors are very useful in consumer apps, where the range of 
properties is often smaller and their scope less broad.

In development tools we often see a Property Sheet that shows all 
properties, as opposed to the subset we've had available in all 
Inspectors thus far.

Here's an implementation I've been using whenever I need things not 
found in any Inspector:
<http://fourthworld.net/revnet/devolution/4W_Props.rev.gz>

The design is largely functional, but suboptimal.  Time permitting it 
would group related properties together under collapsible headers.

And when you think about, even if the Inspector were to continue to 
limit itself to a subset of object properties, once you start down the 
road of horizontal labels the design screams for such an accordion 
design anyway.

Using that according design within a scrollable Property Sheet allows 
for most of what folks are looking for here:

- Ease of access
- Clear labels for related properties

...and adds something that I don't recall coming up here yet but would 
sooner or later:

- Completeness, the ability to see all of an object's properties

The latter is not only very valuable for pros who know about properties 
not commonly used enough to have merited inclusion in an Inspector, but 
also for newcomers who can learn about the scope of properties in an 
object in one place.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com