Iain Dalton wrote:

The toolbar should dock to the screen edge such that the user can throw the
mouse to the edge and click to select a tool.

See the answer to question 2 on Tog's "Quiz Designed to Give You Fitts"
(http://www.asktog.com/columns/022DesignedToGiveFitts.html).

nice to see you refer to my then hero and now colleague Bruce Tognazzini.
'Tog on interface' was my first grounding in interaction design, about 17 years ago, and I have not looked back...

Assuming people agree, is this possible without hacking the window manager?

maybe it is simply too early to spend effort on this. GIMP currently ships with a 6-column toolbox, (informally) kept that wide by the tool options. This gives you an edge speed-up for 1 in 6 tools.

I am working on the long term UI goal to have GIMP ship with a 2-column toolbox, which on larger screens could be stretched to single-column. this includes reducing the overall number of tools and one of the most challenging interaction design problems of GIMP: what to do with the tool options.

once we get there, it pays to discuss the edge speed-up.

--ps

founder + principal interaction architect man + machine interface works

http://mmiworks.net/blog : on interaction architecture

Hi peter,

On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 8:34 PM, peter sikking wrote:

maybe it is simply too early to spend effort on this. GIMP currently ships with a 6-column toolbox, (informally) kept that wide by the tool options. This gives you an edge speed-up for 1 in 6 tools.

How? In all configurations I have tested, padding prevents this: i must jump to the edge then slide back a little in order to click on the tool icon rather than a little padding pixel column of the toolbox.

I am working on the long term UI goal to have GIMP ship with a 2-column toolbox, which on larger screens could be stretched to single-column. this includes reducing the overall number of tools and one of the most challenging interaction design problems of GIMP: what to do with the tool options.

Good to hear.

David

2009/6/15 David Gowers :

Hi peter,

On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 8:34 PM, peter sikking wrote:

maybe it is simply too early to spend effort on this. GIMP currently ships with a 6-column toolbox, (informally) kept that wide by the tool options. This gives you an edge speed-up for 1 in 6 tools.

How? In all configurations I have tested, padding prevents this: i must jump to the edge then slide back a little in order to click on the tool icon rather than a little padding pixel column of the toolbox.

I assume he meant that this _would_ give you a 1 in 6 tool speedup if edge docking was implemented.

Henk

David Gowers wrote:

peter wrote:

maybe it is simply too early to spend effort on this. GIMP currently ships with a 6-column toolbox, (informally) kept that wide by the tool options. This gives you an edge speed-up for 1 in 6 tools.

How?

let me rephrase what I really meant:

"if we would make the effort to make the tool column on the screen edge press-able on the pixels on the screen edge, then still only 1 in 6 tools
would have this edge speed-up."

In all configurations I have tested, padding prevents this: i must jump to the edge then slide back a little in order to click on the tool icon rather than a little padding pixel column of the toolbox.

I was not even suggesting that users DIY this today by simply moving their toolbox slightly off-screen. But yes, my window manager allows me to manoeuvre part of the window off-screen.

--ps

founder + principal interaction architect man + machine interface works

http://mmiworks.net/blog : on interaction architecture

Hello Iain,

The toolbar should dock to the screen edge

shouldn't that be the window manager's job? Still I'm looking forward to more ideas from Peter (and maybe other UI designers) :)

Daniel