Bug 67207 - Toolbars should only show the most important icons
Summary: Toolbars should only show the most important icons
Status: RESOLVED NOT A BUG
Alias: None
Product: kde
Classification: I don't know
Component: general (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Platform: Compiled Sources Linux
: NOR wishlist
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Unassigned bugs mailing-list
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2003-11-04 15:32 UTC by Carsten Schlipf
Modified: 2006-06-22 16:45 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

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Description Carsten Schlipf 2003-11-04 15:32:07 UTC
Version:           unknown (using KDE 3.1.3)
Installed from:    compiled sources
Compiler:          gcc version 3.2.2 20030222 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.2-5)
OS:          Linux (i686) release 2.4.20-18.9

Most KDE applications (Konqueror, Kmail,...) have an overloaded toolbar.

The goal of a toolbar is to provide a shortcut for the most important functions, not to serve as a replacement for the menu. Therefore it's important to determine these functions as quickly as possible. A lot of icons do no good to this concept.

Good example: Mac OS X
Bad example: Microsoft Office, Konqueror

Some examples: For copy, cut and paste, either the context menu or the keyboard shortcut is better than the toolbar. So these icons could be removed.

There is a poll on KDE-Look.org (http://www.kde-look.org/poll/index.php?poll=51), where you can get more opinions on this. A clear majority voted to have less toolbar icons as default.
Comment 1 Carsten Schlipf 2003-11-04 15:36:44 UTC
Oh, and if we have fewer icons, it would be also possible to show the text for the icons making it even easier for new users to use the toolbars.
Comment 2 Sashmit Bhaduri 2003-11-05 06:13:15 UTC
I think you should file bug reports for individual apps.. this bug report is bound to get ignored/closed because it's very vague. 

I agree with you however. 
Comment 3 Carsten Schlipf 2003-11-05 09:34:22 UTC
Sashmit,

you may be right, but in my opinion it is one issue that should not spread accross all KDE applications (although there are some applications like Konqueror that need a rework most urgently). Instead I would like to see this added to the KDE Interface Guidelines like mentioned by stampede in a comment on KDE-Look.org: http://www.kde-look.org/poll/index.php?poll=51#c39003

In that way it will become visibile to all existing and all future applications.
Comment 4 Dan Leinir Turthra Jensen 2003-11-05 11:04:23 UTC
I think carsten@yeap.de is right (comment #3) in saying that it's nessecary to have it in the User Interface Guidelines.
In addition to the KDE User Interface Guidelines, a friendly soul on the KDE CWS has begun an actual Pseudo-HIG for KDE ( http://kde.ground.cz/tiki-index.php?page=KDE+Pseudo-HIG ). Maybe it would be a good place to include this as well.
Comment 5 Sashmit Bhaduri 2003-11-05 18:38:26 UTC
That KDE Psuedo HIG link looks interesting, thanks..

I started a "Toolbar Review" page on the wiki just now, the aim is to go through every module in KDE, and go through each app, and make a list of additions/deletions to toolbars.

See http://kde.ground.cz/tiki-index.php?page=Toolbar+Review
Comment 6 Andreas Daab 2004-03-15 21:36:01 UTC
I have six icons in my konqueror web toolbar:
up, back, forward, home, reload stop and animated gear. The copy&paste and zoom icons should be removed by default.
Comment 7 Dan Leinir Turthra Jensen 2004-03-15 21:41:23 UTC
That is rather scary, I have the exact same buttons on my toolbar... Maybe there are others as well with that selection. And I agree with you on removing the copy, paste and zoom icons for default, especially in the Web view (which, really, should also have the Up button removed)
Comment 8 Carsten Schlipf 2004-05-25 14:06:28 UTC
Dito! I do not need more buttons.

Zoom is better done by Ctrl+Wheel, Copy and paste better done by Ctrl+c and Ctrl+v or through selection and middle mouse.

However the "Up" Button is also useful in the web view, e.g. if you browse dirs or just go up on web pages that have an index.html file for every folder.
Comment 9 icefox 2004-12-31 19:28:49 UTC
Just some quick notes about this wish:

1) The earliest it could happen is KDE 4 (and there has been a lot of talk about this for KDE4)

2) It would have to be more spelled out in the usability guildlines.

3) You can run with this today.  In kcontrol you can set the default toolbar to use large icons and text underneath.  Then simply configure each applications toobar (if necessary) removing the actions that aren't frequently used.

For example a number of actions such as save etc automatically add themselves to toolbars now.  This is a code change which would require KDE4.  But beyond that it changes the default behavior of all 3rd part applications which can't be done till binary incompatibility release.

A possible usability spec:

  Toolbars should have commonly used actions for that application.

Examples: 

Actions that are standard actions and have common, known keyboard shortcuts (such as save, quit, open, and print should almost never reside on the toolbar as these will 1) have the same keyboard shortcuts and 2) reside in the same menu location in the applications across the desktop.  The toolbar can be much better utilized showing application specific features that are commonly used.  This helps users clearly see (and read/learn) those applications specific actions. 

Applications should aim to have around seven actions (what fits on the screen and users can remember).

Following with the comments above about OSX, check out Apple's XCode:

http://developer.apple.com/documentation/DeveloperTools/Conceptual/ToolsOvr_Book/art/projectbuilder.gif

When I first saw XCode I figured it will little more then an editor, but in fact it is much more feature full similar too KDevelop.  Can you image KDevelop looking that clean?  It can be done.

One major work that has to be done is some action strings are too long for no good reason.  The most common example is a menu called "Folder" and sub-action called "Folder Compress" when it really should be just "Compress".
Comment 10 Dik Takken 2005-11-17 13:52:11 UTC
Have a look at

http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=25293

to see how much cleaner Konqueror can become. This also shows that it is already possible to make it look like that, but IMHO this should be the default for two reasons:

1. Unexperienced users get scared-off by crowded toolbars, and we should not expect them to figure out how to configure them on their own.
2. Experienced users do know how to configure the toolbars, so they can always make them more 'advanced' if they want to.
 
Comment 11 Tommi Tervo 2005-11-17 14:16:59 UTC
try konqueror --profile simplebrowser
That's what e.g. kubuntu does by default.
Comment 12 icefox 2005-11-17 16:34:34 UTC
FYI, in svn trunk (for kde4) right now the icons are larger with text (I changed the default after aKademy).  This will give us a year or so until 4 is out to find any problems with this.  As a side effect it forces developers to remove unnecessary icons from their toolbars.  Hmm guess in a way this can be assigned to me if you want Waldo.
Comment 13 Dik Takken 2005-11-17 16:57:55 UTC
> FYI, in svn trunk (for kde4) right now the icons are larger with text

Wow, that's great news.

Besides removing icons, there is another thing that needs fixing: Some icons have a very long text which makes them take lots of space.

We could still provide the old crowded toolbars in Konqueror and have them accessible as a Konqueror profile:

konqueror --profile powerbrowser
Comment 14 icefox 2005-11-18 10:35:49 UTC
Yes, a lot of text will need to be shortend.  As for having a "power" profile makes little sense.  A power user will modify it to there hearts content and no one can guess what they want.
Comment 15 el3ktro 2006-01-12 22:50:49 UTC
Yes, I think it's a common mistake to think that a "power user" will always have all toolbar buttons & all functions of a program turned on. I consider myself a "power user", and the first thing I do is to slim down Konqueror's toolbars to a minimum, to the view buttons I really need. Being a power user does not necessarily mean that you need all functions of a program. Showimg is another example, it's toolbar is so damn overcrowded, it's really ugly. But is this for power users? It's not, imho. A friend of mine, a professional photographer uses his Mac instead of his Kubuntu machine to manage his photos. He's sometimes getting hundreds or thousands of photos off of his camera to his computer. He could use Digikam for that, it offers so many options - but he just gts lost. He uses Apple's tools to get his photos. You plug the camera into the Mac, iPhoto pops up, and it takes ONE SINGLE MOUSE CLICK to dwnload all photos off of the camera. In Digikam this is much more complex, the "Camera" menu is hidden somewhere between all the other menus & toolbars -very hard to find. My friend is definitely a power user when it comes to photography, and iPhoto is the tool of his coice because it's UI doesn't get in the way and lets him do what he wants to do.

Tom
Comment 16 Lubos Lunak 2006-06-22 16:45:53 UTC
Please file very specific reports or even better simply join the usability team and make such changes happen. This vague and generic bugreport is not going to affect anything.