Alternative UI of Project Explorer

Hello,
Usability Study of the Second Prototype 
<http://ui.netbeans.org/usability/April_21_03/JavaProjectReport.html>
shows several problems. One of those issues was the concept of active 
project:

> The concept of the Active Project was not understood and contributed
> to problems for each of the participants. In the best cases it took the
> participant several minutes to understand that there was an Active
> Project. Most of the participants never came across the idea Active
> Project and had to fumble around for a long time before finding context
> sensitive actions that allowed them to bypass using the concept.

Svata Dedic designed alternative "Project Explorer". His projects can be 
found at <http://lit.fsid.cvut.cz/~svata/nb4dev/index.html>. The Project 
Explorer can be downloaded in form of a nbm module at 
<http://lit.fsid.cvut.cz/~svata/nb4dev/modules/projects-ide2.nbm>

This proposal was probably overlooked on this mailing list, but I think 
it is very interesting and someone (probably from UI team) should 
definitely look at it. I think it could solve lot of issues. Let's look 
at the UI study in details:


> BUILDING AND RUNNING PROJECTS
> 
> Issue: A participant uses "Build Active Project" toolbar button or
> main menu item to build a non-active project.
> 
> Analysis: Active project is not understood. Partly because the active
> project is not highlighted well enough -the little noticed '[active]'
> text next to the project name is lost in the jumble of text and nodes
> in the project explorer.
> 
> This problem is exacerbated because the IDE starts up with an example
> project that is set active (and new projects do not automatically get
> the active setting).
> 
> Recommendation(s): Make the active project title bold and re-order
> the project nodes to improve discoverability of both Resources and
> Output node as well as create some visual space between the bolded
> title and the content of the Sources node.
.
.
.
> Issue: A participant doesn't notice that the build output results
> belong to a different project than he wants to build.
> 
> Analysis: Symptom of the Active Project issue.
> 
> Recommendation(s): See above + do a better job of making the compiled
> 
> project title noticeable in the output window. See bug 33604
> 
> Issue: A participant doesn't compile a project, only a class using a
> shortcut, main menu, or contextual menu of the class.
> 
> Analysis: Work around for Active project issue.
> 
> Recommendation(s): See above. See bug 33604


The main idea of Svata's alternative Project Explorer is simple. The 
user will work only with one project at given time (however other 
projects can be still opened). And this is reason why Project Explorer 
shows only one project - the Active one. What you see is what you get. 
Project switching is implemented as combo box. See pictures:
http://projects.netbeans.org/servlets/GetAttachment?msgId=510784&attachId=1&listName=dev
http://projects.netbeans.org/servlets/GetAttachment?msgId=510784&attachId=2&listName=dev

The advantage is obvious: there is no doubt which project is active.


> The visual representation of the active project need to be improved
> 100 fold. Bolding the project title is probably the least that should
> be done to signify that the project is active. Other visual cues
> might involve changing the explorer background behind non-active
> projects to a light shade of gray (not enough to look disabled but to
> draw focus to the active project with the white background).
> 
> Project wide actions need to be clearly labeled and have easy to
> understand rules to avoid the current context ambiguity between build
> and run (build applying to the current selection and run applying to
> the active project). Create a small set of duplicated actions in the
> main menu should be enough -Build, Run, Debug (with the standard
> shortcuts) apply to the Active project and Build <project name>, Run
> <project name>, Debug <project name> would apply to the currently
> selected or context-active project.


Visual representation of active project in Svata's Project Explorer is 
clear. Simply what you see in Project Explorer is Active.

Moreover this Explorer could significantly improve usability of Sources, 
Output and Resources Node. Explorer has (or will have) 4 tabs: most 
important Packages tab (java oriented view on project sources), Sources 
tab (file oriented view), Resources and Output tab. This layout is 
similar to VS.NET, isn't it?

Let's take usability study again:

> Other Issues - Communication
> 
> Project structure is unclear and hard to decipher with even one or
> two small projects open.
.
.
.
> Conclusions
> # Reorder Top Level Project Nodes
> 
> Changing the order of the project nodes should help bring more
> attention to the Resources and Output nodes. When the Sources node is
> expanded these two nodes get lost in the lower parts of the explorer
> (even with a small project) and overlooked. The argument at the time
> was to move them down because they won't be used much -but for just
> that reason they should be kept at the top. The two are unlikely to
> be expanded so sources will likely be visible and by having them
> between the Sources node and the Project node they should be much
> more discoverable.

Having Resources and Output nodes on separated tabs could bring more 
attantion to themselves I think. Moreover Explorer tree will flatten and 
the user will not get lost in the huge tree.

UI guys, did you look at it? If not, please do it. I don't say, that 
Svata's Project Explorer is perfect, but it definitely worth trying.

Jan