Bug 270018

Summary: "Remove the tool" button unintuitive
Product: [Developer tools] kdevplatform Reporter: Wolfgang Bangerth <bangerth>
Component: sublimeAssignee: kdevelop-bugs-null
Status: RESOLVED FIXED    
Severity: normal CC: adymo, aleixpol, kitts.mailinglists
Priority: NOR    
Version: git master   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: openSUSE   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Wolfgang Bangerth 2011-04-03 18:29:56 UTC 
Version:           4.2.0 (using KDE 4.6.0) 
OS:                Linux

The various tool buttons one can align around the perimeter of the main window make good sense and it is intuitive that if I click on one, it opens or closes the respective tool's sub-window.

What I find myself completely confused by was that if I click on the top right button in a subwindow (the one labeled "Remove the tool") it doesn't just close the subwindow as one would expect, but in fact removes the tool from the list of tools on the perimeter as well. It took me quite a while of searching to get it back, but the main point is that while this behavior is consistent with the text of the tooltip, it is not consistent with the usual behavior of windows: when you click on the "x", it closes the window but doesn't remove the button to get it back. You'd be surprised as well if you closed kdevelop by clicking on the top right button of the main window and this also removed the kdevelop start button on the KDE screen :-)

In other words, please make this button do the equivalent thing to clicking on the tool's name on the perimeter of the main window.

Thanks
 Wolfgang

Reproducible: Always
Comment 1 Aleix Pol 2011-11-22 19:31:25 UTC 
I agree that removing a tab is not common enough so that we have to have the button always visible.

I'm not sure we want to hide if the X is clicked, though. Changing such a functionality in a program is weird and the users who know how it works will feel weird.

If it's really troublesome I'd say we can remove the button and problem gone.
Comment 2 Wolfgang Bangerth 2011-11-22 20:01:04 UTC 
I would say leave the button in place but change the semantics: instead of removing the tool, make it equivalent to what happens when you click on the tab on the perimeter of the main window ("hide" the tool).

As for changing the behavior: True, change is awkward, but in general I tend to think that whenever a program has some awkward behavior that is commonly agreed makes little sense, then I'm all in favor of changing it: the few users who actively use it will adapt (and I would claim that few people actively use it, because completely removing a tool is a pretty uncommon operation) while the large majority as well as all those who may learn the tool in the future will benefit from the change.

W.
Comment 3 Kishore 2011-11-28 13:23:19 UTC 
I still think there has to be a way to remove the view. For example, i dont want the debug view in the code area and the run view in the debug area. This state is not saved as it seems and so i have to do this each time i start kdevelop.
Comment 4 Wolfgang Bangerth 2011-11-28 13:58:36 UTC 
There is of course a way to do what you want:
- to close the tool view, simply click on the symbol on the perimeter
- to remove the tool view symbol from the perimeter, right click on it and
  select "Remove toolview"

W.
Comment 5 Kishore 2011-11-28 17:20:43 UTC 
Ah yes. That should be enough.
Comment 6 Alexander Dymo 2011-12-08 16:26:09 UTC 
(In reply to comment #4)
Agree to this solution, patch is very velcome
Comment 7 Aleix Pol 2012-11-21 02:31:27 UTC 
I think this is how it works now, if that's not the case, please reopen.