Quick-hide bars - feature request

aberly · Post by **aberly** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 6:37 am

For much of what I do I need to have all the toolbars showing. But when I'm reading messages or previewing photos, there is too little screen space to do this. And it takes a long time to close all the toolbars and open them again.

So I'm suggesting a feature like the one found in Photoshop. In Photoshop, pressing the tab key hides all open palettes and anything else that is intruding into the work area. The only thing left is the work space and the menu bar. Hit the tab key again, and they are all back the way they were before.

In Usenet Explorer, I was thinking that the tab key could hide everything except the message header window and the body display window. Hitting tab again would bring it back the way it was before. And Maybe MS Windows would force you to leave the menu too. I notice Photoshop does. But the main idea is to quickly hide as much as possible, and quickly be able to bring it all back.

Josef K · Post by **Josef K** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 12:02 pm

You can configure keys yourself to show/hide these toolbars. It would mean using two separate keys but at least it's better than nothing.

Right-click on the main toolbar and then Customise. Click the Keyboard tab then select View in the dropdown menu. 'Quick filter bar' and 'Search service bar' are the two that you would need to assign your own custom keys to. In this situation, you can assign keys you can hit quickly and are easily within reach. If you try to use keys that are already assigned to something else you will get a message to warn you. You can go so far as to assign keys to the main toolbar and the status bar if you need even more space.

As mentioned above, it's a workaround but at least it's an option available to you.

aberly · Post by **aberly** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 3:56 pm

Thanks for the workaround. Very good idea. I assigned keystrokes alt-1, alt-2, alt-3, etc. to make it easy to do.

I discovered a bug, though. When I assign a keystroke to View|Toolbar, it doesn't respond to the keystroke. I tried reseting and using different keystrokes, but nothing gets it to work.

Josef K · Post by **Josef K** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 4:12 pm

Yes, I notice that now also. Maybe it isn't a bug but a design feature to stop people accidentally losing their toolbars and panicking. Alex can shed more light on this. Since it appears in the list of customisable shortcuts, I assumed it would be possible. I don't use this myself as I find reducing the font size can display more. That's also something you can do within UE (Edit->Fonts and colours) if hiding toolbars is not quite enough for you.

alex · Post by **alex** » Thu Jan 03, 2008 6:40 am

i'm using a third party gui library.

ue internals code is completely separated from gui code, in theory it could be used for cross-platform development but in practice it is only to boost reliability (since there is enough interface bound code as well apart from internals).

but with such requests i can do some things as well since if needed i also can change the third party code to modify it or to fix something if it doesn't work.

Josef K · Post by **Josef K** » Thu Jan 03, 2008 9:52 am

Personally I wouldn't mind seeing a Save layout in UE. Quite often, especially if I log in remotely and the resolution changes for that, the Quick filter and Search bars will move to the far left. I know it's picky but I just like them in the middle where they're slightly more 'to hand'. Then, to solve aberly's problem, you could have a Hide all toolbars function and then a Window->Restore saved layout menu item.

alex · Post by **alex** » Fri Jan 04, 2008 6:19 am

i think i noticed it as well sometimes when accessing through remote, but i'm not sure it always happens.

the bars are rather standard bars, since the library doesn't allow to put two check boxes one under another.

if you can reproduce it let me know what is the sequence, i could fix it if i can reproduce it reliably, just right now too busy with forcing myself to finish unpack this month, somehow it took unexplicably long dark path in my mind

aberly · Post by **aberly** » Fri Jan 04, 2008 3:49 pm

At least the third party GUI author should fix whatever is preventing View|Toolbar from accepting a keystroke.

Josef K · Post by **Josef K** » Sat Jan 05, 2008 12:21 pm

alex wrote:if you can reproduce it let me know what is the sequence, i could fix it if i can reproduce it reliably...

I've been trying to think how I can do this but there seems nothing substantial right now, nothing to repeat the effect every time. It's an annoying little problem. I know resolution changes can affect it. However, last night I set something off downloading, checked the Finish & exit button and minimised UE to the tray. Now when I open it up, my toolbars have both moved. There was no remote login this time and no resolution change. Furthermore, I haven't touched the computer between last night and a moment ago when I went to open up UE to do something. They aren't a little bit off, either. I always like the far left of the toolbars to sit above the split between the Workspace and Task manager and now they are pushed to the absolute far left.

The sequence was exactly:

Download->click Finish & exit->minimise->lock computer.

alex · Post by **alex** » Sat Jan 05, 2008 6:45 pm

i couldn't reproduce it with remote access or changing screen resolution.

as to the shortcut i just make a note to check it later so i won't forget.

Josef K · Post by **Josef K** » Sat Jan 05, 2008 7:38 pm

UE will remember the position of the toolbars when it exits. If you only login remotely or change the resolution and then change back again without exiting UE, the toolbars will move back to their previous position. If you do the same again but have UE set to Finish & exit, the positions will be remembered and will appear next time you launch in the place they were when it last closed.

For example:

Run UE
leave it running idle/downloading
lock the computer
login remotely (changing resolution in the process)
logout from remote access
unlock and start using UE

In this case, UE will have gone through resolution changes but then reverted back to where it was at the start. If you exit now, the toolbar positions will be saved in the correct positions.

Run UE
leave it running idle/downloading with Finish & exit enabled
lock the computer
login remotely (changing resolution in the process)
either leave UE running (still Finish & exit enabled) or close UE while logged in remotely
logout from remote access

Assuming Finish & exit closed UE before you logged in again at the physical computer itself or that you closed UE while you were logged in remotely and the resolution was different, running UE will remember the saved positions of the toolbars as it was closed.

You get the same effect if you place a desktop icon in the bottom right of the screen, login remotely, logout and finally login physically. The icon will be placed closer to the centre of the screen, depending on resolutions involved.

alex · Post by **alex** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 6:11 am

what is scenario when the bar position will be reset?

i also tried to run, then load remotedly and exit, then run again, the position still holds.

i guess when we reproduce it the position should reset somewhere to the left instead of keeping the current one.

Josef K · Post by **Josef K** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 10:12 am

Scenario 1:
Run UE, move one of the bars to the left and exit/restart. The bar will remain on the left while the other stays where it was previously. This shows that UE sets the 'remember position' flag during exit. I presume if UE crashes, the position would not be saved.

Scenario 2:
Run UE, restore it and drag the bottom right corner to resize it to a smaller window - enough for the toolbars to move all the way to the left. (If you drag the bottom right handle around to make the window larger/smaller, you will notice the toolbars will move back to the original position if the window is large enough. Maximising UE will restore the toolbars to the original position.) While UE is resized to something like 800x600, close and restart. The toolbars will be pushed to the far left, even if UE is maximised.

Obviously this isn't a logging in remotely example but the principle is the same. The window size changes and the relative positions of the toolbars are saved based on the size of the window.

I've thought a bit more about this and having my previous suggestion of a Window->Restore layout solution would be just as fiddly and time consuming as moving the toolbars back again manually given the amount of times I find myself having to do this. Something like Window->Save layout and then an option somewhere to always start with the preferred layout if possible (i.e. screen res is 'native' to the saved layout). Several applications have an option to save window (maximised/restored, etc.) and UE could use this. Attempting to create example scenarios here just shows how it would be useful: I resized UE to ~800x600 and restarted. The shortcut to start it has the window set to maximised, not restored. UE starts restored, flagrantly disregarding the command I set for it. This is on Vista x64. I wonder if there is a difference in this regard to starting x86/x64 applications on an x64 OS. I will check later.

alex · Post by **alex** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 2:21 pm

yes, maybe if to try to make the quick filter/search service bars to behave like the toolbar regarding window resizing when it is pushed to the left but remembers the position after restart (so it won't store the position change caused only by window resizing) then all should be ok, i'll check it out, most likely it is it.