[Licq-devel] Re: Chat dialog modification

Anders Olofsson schrieb:
> I would like to do some changes to the chat dialog as a feel that the
> current dialog wastes space with all the extra buttons and controls
> everywhere.
>
> Currently I have only tried to move things around a bit to make it more
> space efficient. In the future I'm thinking of making it possible for
> the user to easily hide/show parts of the dialog (s)he is not using at
> the moment.
>
> The attached image is a screenshot of how the dialog can look and I
> would like to know what you think.
>
> I have done the following changes:
>
> 1) Removed the status indicator. The information is already available in
> the icon on the tab or window so no need to display it in text as well. 
>
> 2) Typing notification is displayed by changing the tab text color but
> for those of us that doesn't use tabs it is also indicated by changing
> icon on the tab/window to the typing icon from the extended icon set.
>
> 3) All tool buttons are changed to QToolButton which are smaller. It
> would also be possible to use a QToolBar which would give them a toolbar
> look and also remove the spacing between them.
>
> 4) Menu button has been moved next to history and info buttons as I
> think they belong together. The button is marked "Me" as I have no icon
> yet to display on it.
>
> 5) The checkboxes have been changed to toggleble toolbar buttons to make
> them smaller. Again I have no icons yet so I just abrivated the text for
> now. Note that the text is slightly wider so the buttons will be even
> smaller with icons.
>
> 6) Checkboxes and toolbuttons in the groupbox have been moved and
> grouped on the "toolbar".
>
>
> Outstanding issues:
>
> 1) I would like to move the combobox as well but that would presently
> make the window to wide. Maybe it could be made into a toolbutton with a
> popup menu just like the encoding button.
>
> 2) Icons are needed, I can't draw and I don't know what can be taken
> >from the Internet and used without anyone complaining.
> Can anyone help me with this?
>
> 3) I have currently hidden the info field showing the contact's local
> time as cannot find a good place for it. Maybe to the far right end of
> the "toolbar".
>
> 4) I haven't yet attempted to do anything about the extra margins around
> the textareas or the sizing of them. (The input area currently defaults
> to being huge when the dialog is opened.)
>
>
> Let me know what you think, other placement, grouping or order of the
> buttons, other things that should be changed, etc...
>
> /Anders
>   
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>

Hi,

maybe the current chat window in icqnd (the gtk2-frontend for licq) is 
close to your thoughts. There you have three bars:
1. The remote bar (which is above the chat text view)
2. The local bar (which is under the chat text view and above the input 
text view)
3. the control bar (which is under the input text view).

In the options dialog you can switch on/off any of these bars and 
dispatch all possible buttons and menus in these bars as you wish (you 
can also switch off certain menu elements by not placing them into the 
bars ...).
Maybe this would also be appropriate for the qt-gui - have a look at it :).

Regards,
Joachim