[Qt-creator] New Design #3

[Ziller Eike]

Hi,

One thing that makes it hard to style Qt Creator is its cross-platform scope. Whatever is done, it should also be considered if it looks ok on all major supported platforms. We also do not style all parts of Qt Creator (project tree, ui elements in advanced search, debugger views etc) and IMO we should not do that, even if we theoretically could. Qt Creator is also both a test case and a show case for what Qt can do, and from the UI point of view on desktop that is something that looks and behaves natively. E.g. I think it is important that Qt Creator on Mac uses native Mac scroll bars that behave like native scroll bars do (for example wrt auto-hide).
On the other hand we do (want to) style Qt Creator a bit, and that possibility also is a feature of Qt of course.
So the most important thing that I'd want to see would be how the design plays together with e.g. the side bar on various platforms.

Colors: I prefer light themes, because I get headaches and watering eyes with light text on dark background, but I think you've already been convinced that this would be necessary ;)

Mode bar: I can't wrap my mind around vertical text. Since we moved the progress information out, we already have the option to hide the mode bar, and I think we could have a "small icons version" in addition, though I'd then actually would consider removing the text completely instead of having vertical text.

I actually like your mode icons, only the "debug" icon looks too similar to the android icon, at least that's what I first thought it was.

Locator: I'm not in principle against having Locator in the upper right, that's probably even where many people nowadays expect search functionality (because of browsers, mail clients, mobile. Would be interesting to see a usability study on that :) ), but it requires adding a horizontal tool bar like you did, which I do not like. Looks cluttered, and additional vertical space is used which tends to be much sparser than horizontal space.

Flat design: I'm a bit sceptical of flat designs because they make it harder to convey what parts of the UI are interactive and which parts are just informative. Already now we get complaints that the combo boxes in Qt Creator's tool bars are not obviously enough interactive UI elements. E.g. I think the output pane buttons ("Issues", "Search Results" etc) are recognizable enough as buttons in your welcome mode mockup with the light theme, but not at all in the dark theme.

> * We don’t need that “new design revolution”, I can do all the thinks what I have to do with the current design!
> ** Well this point is a bit tricky… Digia want to have full Android and iPhone support until the end of this year. Be honest the design of an IDE also represents and shows the possibilities what you are able to do with that kind of technology.

As a Qt desktop application, Qt Creator should show the possibilities of Qt for desktop applications, as I wrote above. I don't see why or how an IDE should look and/or behave similar to the target platform of the resulting software created with it.

> Since we write our interfaces in qml (which is literally awesome by the way) we also want a graphical editor. And who is using this editor? Designer who really care about good looking interfaces. The point that “you can do everything with the current design” is true! But stop to evolve is not a good thing. You get my point, right?

What I'd prefer over a complete redesign would actually be some "evolution" of the current design. E.g. going over all icons and making them more consistent / improving them, improving the look and feel of the combo boxes in tool bars, going through screens, dialogs, etc and cleaning the layouts, just to mention a few things that could be done. Also things like the mode bar small icons vs big icons, and the location of locator etc could actually be discussed separate from an actual visual style IMO.

Br, Eike

On 10.09.2013, at 05:20, Elias Steurer <elias at evolutionzone.net> wrote:

> Hey Guys,
>  
> I have some new sketches to share with you:
>  
> The Dark Version
> http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/4779/xemj.png
>  
> First preview of the Light Theme (Without the top bar)
> http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/94/t0vx.png
>  
>  
> Best,
>  
> Eli
> _______________________________________________
> Qt-creator mailing list
> Qt-creator at qt-project.org
> http://lists.qt-project.org/mailman/listinfo/qt-creator

-- 
Eike Ziller, Senior Software Engineer - Digia, Qt
 
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