Editor Preview Improvement

It has been mentioned before.....but here's a couple more ideas to improve the size of the preview window while in the editor.....

1) "Place mouse over preview window to expand" option.....

2) Dual screen support to place an expanded preview window on a second display.....

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StevieJ wrote: to improve the size of the preview window while in the editor...

When I opened the editor for the first time (long time ago), I attempted to do that the intuitive way: by click-dragging the 'divider' space between the editor and the preview window to interactively resize things to my liking. Sadly, it didn't work!

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Crapadilla wrote: click-dragging the 'divider' space between the editor and the preview window to interactively resize things to my liking

Yes, obviously, this should be included as well, in addition to the button (it would simply switch teh workspace between the user-specified state and the initial hard-coded state).

Both the horizontal and vertical 'divider' spaces of the Preview+Properties 'bar' should be click-dragable IMHO (see my incredibly articulated scribble below). This would be a blessing to all the large resolution display users among us.

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Vladimir Golovin wrote: The question is, how do we implement the Maximize/Minimize button, or, more precisely, 1) where to place the button, and 2) between which states it should toggle (minimized/user-defined or user-defined/maximized).

Hmmm... I really don't care much for a toggle button, and I'm not sure whether such a button is really necessary. Just define a reasonable minimum and maximum width for the preview/properities bar as well as low/high boundaries for the horizontal divider, and then let the user settle for anything in between.

The important thing to me is the ability to resize the render preview/properties pane on-the-fly while working. Manipulating the 'dividers' should feel easy (i.e. non-fiddly), fast, responsive, fluid!

An example: Sometimes I'll want to focus on the filter tree for extensive construction work and push the preview area all the way to the side with a stroke of the tablet pen. When fine-tuning, I'll focus on a particular area of the filter tree, say a control slider, to see its effects on the final render, so I'll want to bring the render preview into view again at full size with another quick pen stroke. To me, this is a fluid process where the GUI should allow for fast, on-the-fly changes in order to facilitate this fluidity. Toggling between predefined minimum/maximum states does not feel fluid, as I'd have to break attention to click that UI button or find that hotkey on the keyboard.

Also important is that the filter editor saves this custom state of the preview/proterties bar, so that it is persistent between sessions. I'd hate to fire up the editor only to see that it has reverted to the minimum state again, because once I've customized an application to my liking, I'd expect the app stay that way.



Also, while we're at the topic of customizing GUI: The 'Main UI' could also make use of this feature. On my 30 inch cinema display (2560 x 1600 px screen real estate), the 'Filter Controls' area is crammed into the lower left corner of the UI as if it were a real shy one! The ability to click-drag the horizontal divider would be very welcome there as well, especially for those control-freak filters!

Hey what about Multiple Previews, if you want. It would be similar to the previews for Macromedia stuff, the 4 sample images, I guess you could have a slider of squares of how many previews there are. 1 Preview would take up the whole space, 2 would divide it into quadrants, and 3; 9 previews, you get the idea.

Instead of just having "Lock to Preview", It would be a dropdown list of which preview it would be locked to. Then the tab idea comes in, and you switch to the preview tab. If you didn't want to switch to a tab, only the 1st preview would be shown as it normally would be.

Yeah?

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Kraellin wrote: drop down lists are kind of a taboo with FF

It's trees, not dropdown lists (though I dislike them as well).

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Vladimir Golovin wrote: Between the sessions or within each filter (as we do with Zoom/Pan)?

Between sessions, but that's just my personal take.

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Vladimir Golovin wrote: The question is, how do we implement the Maximize/Minimize button, or, more precisely, 1) where to place the button, and 2) between which states it should toggle (minimized/user-defined or user-defined/maximized).

As a dedicated two-monitor junkie, I would propose that FF not choose where to place the button at all. Give the user the option to make the various UI areas separate palettes.

Each of the four palettes could then be placed/sized according to each user's choice and available screen real-estate.