Re: Emacs Survey: Toolbars

[Christopher Dimech]

> Sent: Thursday, December 17, 2020 at 11:58 AM
> From: "Lars Ingebrigtsen" <larsi@gnus.org>
> To: "Dmitry Gutov" <dgutov@yandex.ru>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: Emacs Survey: Toolbars
>
> Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru> writes:
>
> >> I mean, look at the toolbar that happens when you "emacs -Q": You get an
> >> Emacs with a scratch buffer...  with a "Save" icon.  In a buffer that
> >> can't be saved.  That's how much attention we've spent on toolbars in
> >> two decades.

> > Well, it actually can be saved, as soon as you type something (C-x C-s
> > works), and it's one of the real usage patterns. The button doesn't
> > indicate that, though.
>
> Yeah, the save button stays grayed out and you can't click it, which I
> take to be an indication that this toolbar hasn't gotten a lot of love.
> I mean, it's the toolbar shown in "emacs -Q", and even that one is
> pretty nonsensical.
>
> > Maybe you're right. I checked back, and most contemporary text editors
> > don't have a toolbar like we do.
> >
> > Atom/Sublime/VS Code don't have this kind of editor toolbar. IDEA only
> > has specialized toolbars for, like, debugging.
> >
> > The recent versions of Kate (KDE editor) also seem to have removed
> > it. GNOME Builder only has a small number of buttons, and they are on
> > the title bar. Geany still has a toolbar, though.
> >
> > Even MS Word, while it has a toolbar for certain features, has moved
> > the basic edit buttons to the window titlebar and made them pretty
> > small.
>
> I think we should consider setting some standards for what should be in
> a toolbar, and normal editing commands shouldn't be there.  That is, a
> toolbar should be for things that people want to click a lot, like
> "pause" in a media player, or navigation commands like "prev/next" in
> *Help*.

It's the users who know what they want to click, so make them able to
introduce icons with the commands they want.  Someone has said there
already exists some of that functionality.  In my browser I can drag
whatever item I want to the toolbar!

Artists use toolbars all the time.  Gimp has a toolbar you can drag around.
Fantastic.  And Cad Systems rely on them.

> I just had a peek at the toolbar in *Help* -- it includes things like
> "Save" and "Undo".  No wonder most people disable the thing.
>
> --
> (domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
>    bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no
>
>