Floating Toolbars - discussion

[DarkStar]

Some first thoughts:

a) Display the floating toolbar where the mouse cursor is
These additional Actions would speed things up for me (I hate redundant mouse moves):
-- show/hide floating toolbar under mouse cursor
-- open/close floating toolbar 1 under mouse cursor
-- open/close floating toolbar 2 under mouse cursor
-- open/close floating toolbar 3 under mouse cursor
-- open/close floating toolbar 4 under mouse cursor

b) Change the current 4 "open floating toolbar" actions to "open/close floating toolbar" actions
-- so they become toggled actions

c) Building a Custom toolbar
-- when renaming a text button, show the original Action too, e.g. as shown for "Read" in this mockup, so we can easily see what we have renamed, at the moment I would need to Reset the text then Rename it again

[img]http://img196.**************/img196/4500/r3141dsrenamebutton01.png[/img]

-- when adding an Action to a toolbar, use drag and drop from the Actions window (currently I have to move the mouse to click [Select] and then back again)

[DarkStar]

I've collected some other relevant posts:

Originally Posted by BenK-msx

extremely minor (ungrateful user) nitpick - Ftoolbars should be always on top (or have option) i found a nice spot for it on top of my mixer and then poof is dissapears underneath it!

detaching each Ftoolbar tab would also be ace, to have a few in different convenient locations. but is a new thing and will be tweaked for sure.

i made an fxchain 'solo button' and 'show next/previous tracks fx chain' buttons and put them right next to my perma fxchain. very cool. shows why many ask for a solo button on the fxchain window!

Originally Posted by NAS

Custom toolbar is a first step
Hopefully we can move forward from there
Opening toolbars with actions should not show tabs because floating bars already waste space and the main toolbar is still attached to the tcp
But like i say it's a first step

NAS

Originally Posted by Mr. Data

These are really awesome!! Thanks very much, guys!!

The next logical step IMHO would be to have the icons in context menus so it's not "tool-less editing" anymore, but "tool-less editing if preferred" (Or am I missing something again?), but I can't find this term anymore anyway.

-Data

Originally Posted by musicbynumbers

I like the idea of a "separate" toolbar for the mouse.

Would like to see the ability to choose how many toolbars you want and how many tabs on each.

This way you don't have to have them clogging the menu editor but you could have say 4 toolbars with 4 tabs each if you wanted (which i at least do!)

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

...
We still want separately edited tooltips for floating toolbar icons! ALL OF THEM (icons and text icons).

One more option for floating toolbar icons would be GOLDEN: assigning a state to the icon. It can be normal (as it is now), toggle (as, for example, the Metronome icon in the main toolbar - it shows the current state of the action, if it's a toggle action - it should also reflect the state if the keyboard shortcut was pressed), toggle in place group (several icons should be able to be grouped, and in that toggle group only one icon/button would be active at any one time - in contrast to the normal toggle, where all icons/buttons would've been able to be toggled!). This would be GOLDEN, guys, GOLDEN!

Originally Posted by zappsunzorn

Changing the icon works when I use the right click menu, but selecting "add action" always adds an action instead of changing the action associated with the selected icon, as if it was "change action". I do like the fact that adding an action can be used to control the toolbar icon's order of appearance (you can also click and drag awesome!!).

Also the scrolling in the select toolbar icon window moves the icons to the left a little when I scroll down.

Originally Posted by BenK-msx

FR: would be very useful if position of the Foolbar could be saved and recalled in snapshot form, remembering what tab was selected, size of foolbar etc.

then with a keypress it can pop up in your favourite shape and position with the correct buttons - another keypress and its back on your 2nd monitor in a different form with another set of buttons etc.

Originally Posted by BenK-msx

tabbed floating toolbars?
v.nice work...

edit: they are indeed sweet. one thing (maybe two)

could we possibly have option to NOT show the tabs? seeing as tab select is also actionable. aesthetically that would be nice.

also to be able to resize the toolbar as thin in width as you can in height? e.g in order to create a 'vertical' toolbar of single button width.

its only just been implemented so it will get some further polish of course, but thems my thoughts, beyond it being fab.

ok one more: always on top option would be lush as we say.

Originally Posted by Billoon

Nice work with the toolbar.

Got some suggestions...

Instead of limiting it to 4, why not just have an 'add new tab' option and make the tabs renameable?

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

Awesome additions! Further refinement of added floating toolbar feature:

Each toolbar TAB should be freely (un)dockable (right click on the tab->Undock) - they shouldn't be confined to their own container, we should be able to dock them in the Docker, or below menu bar, wherever.

Icons shouldn't resize automatically when the floating toolbar frame is resized.

Floating toolbar frame should NOT be able to resize to cut off the toolbar tabs! This means that it shouldn't be any smaller than THIS:

Currently you can make it less wider than this and it doesn't look good. Generally if there is a row of icons, it shouldn't get smaller than this width here.

There is still need to separate the main toolbar from the TCP!

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

Hm... you speak wisely! As I said, a right-click context menu on each toolbar tab with following options:

* Undock the toolbar
* Edit the toolbar
* Rename the toolbar (just for ease)
* Hide the tabs
* Close the Floater ( )

Originally Posted by NAS

I don't think we will get the main toolbar docked under the top menus
So i respectfully request the option of having the new toolbars untabbed when launched by the associated actions

I don't really like floating toolbars because they get in the way but if this is what we have then please get rid of the tabs (Optional) so they take up as little space as possible

EDIT*
As you can see in this video, the way i have it set up here removing the tabs and having size to fit on the border would be very advantageous
Oh and just for an added bonus you can see the next step of the drum macros that now only use one toolbar button instead of two

Video

NAS

Originally Posted by Curvespace

A useful action might be "open floating toolbar under mouse". Possibly with the open of a right-click?.. I think it'd satisfy a lot of the folk who want a toolbox.

Originally Posted by gofer

Oh, the tooltip part doesn't seem to work here. Since the pre2 I get the full action name as tooltip.

IMO, the best place for a floating toolbar to appear is at the mouse cursor. Opening a toolbar means I want to click a button most of the time. So that button ideally spawns where I am, instead of me travelling to where that button is. Please make that possible. (EDIT: context sensitive would be killer)

I'm with NAS in that when a toolbar is called via action "Toolbar: open floating toolbar n" the tabs should be not shown. There could be a tiny number, indicating the active tab.
Also these actions could work smarter. They could toggle and if a floating toolbar is already open running an action to open another one could close the old and replace it with the new bar.

Actions to "assign active toolbar button nn to mouse button" would be cool.

And pleasissimo give the MIDI editor some toolbar love too.

Thanks a lot for "Don't scale toolbar buttons above 1:1". That's a relief. Would it be possible to do the same for track icons? I like them small, but whatever I do, they grow to that huge size. I'd do me some 32x20 icons that would never grow nor shrink

Originally Posted by jedstar2000

I see we have an option to change toolbox text color , would it be possible to have an option for a toolbox font as well please.

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

BTW schwa - is there ANY way to sort icons? I guess it would be very nice if the icons are sorted alphabetically as they are in the track folder, and F5 on the icon selector screen should refresh the current state of the folder!

EDIT: I figured they ARE sorted alphabetically, but in case there are some toolbar icons in the theme folder, these are handled separately - they need to be renamed as well. This is in ReaFLS theme, which has 24 additional toolbar icons - which got included.

Originally Posted by xackley

1 replace tabs and edit me button with a button.
The button would simply open the next "toolbar" on left click, rotating thru the bars
Right click would have options to select a toolbar, or edit toolbar.
Move the "!" to the right, under the "x". It would have the same menu as the Rightclick on the button mentioned above.

2 Each Toolbar should be left justified, and be sized to fit the buttons of the currently selected toolbar. Shrink and expand the button bar depending on the button count.

3 Three options for organization, vertical, horizontal, free. These options would be in the "!" menu and on rightclick of the special button.

When Free is not selected, get rid of the resize handle.
When vertical is select, move the "!" to the left of the "x' at the top of the button bar.
When in horizontal, display the "!" below the "x" at the end of the button bar.

Edit: another option could be to display tabs, which would look like the current implementation, with the addition of Vertical tabs.

Originally Posted by jonyjazy

Also would be nice to have the tabed toolbars vertical. It can be done now but the icons get too big and the tabs go away.

Originally Posted by Curvespace

What would be really sick, would be Firefox/Chrome style detachable tabs. Eg. you start with say 4 tabs in your floating toolbar. You click and drag one 'off' the toolbar, so it now has its own window. Then you drag another one across to this new window so you now have two toolbars, each with two tabs. You could then take this further so for example, the second floating toolbar opens and closes with the midi editor or better still, can be dragged and dropped 'into' the midi editor, making it a part of that window...

Sorry if I've missed yours

[EvilDragon]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

HERE IT IS!

First, let's have two new options on these menus:



I know we can edit the tooltips now via text icons, but that's a bit convoluted: add action, change to text icon, name text icon, THEN choose icon. With this, it could just be: add action, edit tooltip, choose icon. ONE STEP LESS. Also this would enable the user to have a more verbose icon tooltip and a very short text icon at the same time!

After clicking on "Edit context..." we would get this:



"Enable icon arming" makes the icon able to use as a tool only in below ticked contexts. (Well, if there are some contexts that are deticked, this means that the icon will not show in those contexts at all, so anyway...) If "Enable icon arming" is deticked, the buttons will not respond to right-click in ALL contexts!

The rest should be pretty self-explanatory.


I should add that with this modification, 4 toolbars wouldn't be needed really - we could have only one BIG toolbar, with separators and stuff, editable through these context selections, and effectively we can get up to 12 separate and different toolbars for each context!

Remember: One toolbar to rule them all, one button to find them (double right click!), one Reaper to bring them all, and in DAWmination to bind them!


EDIT: addition to functionality of context customizing - the icons that are showed in the preview toolbar should be RIGHTCLICK MARQUEE SELECTABLE, SHIFT- and CTRL-SELECTABLE, and their context sensitivity should be EDITABLE IN BULK MANNER - which means one Context Sensitivity customize window opens, and whatever is edited on there is gonna be set for all selected icons! Of course, visualizing multiple selected buttons should be exactly as it is now - selected button=pressed button ("ON" state).

Vote here: http://forum.cockos.com/project.php?issueid=1537 -> context sensitivity

http://forum.cockos.com/project.php?issueid=1539 -> don't scale icons BELOW 1:1

http://forum.cockos.com/project.php?issueid=1540 -> "X" (close) button overlaps with icons BUG!


I'd like to have only ONE floating toolbar, COMPLETELY editable context-wise, and double rightclick shows that toolbar under mouse depending on context. It's the easiest to do.

Also, icons should be LEFT ALIGNED!

DarkStar, your proposition 3) in OP post is void if Cockos implements EDIT TOOLTIP as I suggested in my own quote above!

Drag&Drop from Actions window +100! Also shift- and ctrl-select multiple actions from Actions window +100000!!! (This is also valid request for Menu customizer! Why can't we multiselect actions in these cases?)

[EvilDragon]

* Addition to functionality of context customizing - the icons that are showed in the preview toolbar should be RIGHTCLICK MARQUEE SELECTABLE, SHIFT- and CTRL-SELECTABLE, and their context sensitivity should be EDITABLE IN BULK MANNER - which means one Context Sensitivity customize window opens, and whatever is edited on there is gonna be set for all selected icons! Of course, visualizing multiple selected buttons should be exactly as it is now - selected button=pressed button ("ON" state).

[DarkStar]

Currently, the floating toolbars are for "Main" section Actions only.

It would be valuable to be able to have Floating Toolbars for the MIDI Editor Actions too.

[EvilDragon]

Originally Posted by xackley

2 Each Toolbar should be left justified, and be sized to fit the buttons of the currently selected toolbar. Shrink and expand the button bar depending on the button count.

I have to underline this again. It is very annoying having to resize to a wider toolbar tab from a shorter one. This should be done automatically!

Or, ditch the multiple toolbar tabs, and make one BIG one, and make it context sensitive!

[EvilDragon]

Another (very important suggestion) regarding icon selection window:

1. either make it mouse-scrollable, or

2. disable scrollbar completely (making the window unresizeable) and make the window auto-stretch to fit all icons.


I think this makes a lot of sense. Guys?

[Mercado_Negro]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

Another (very important suggestion) regarding icon selection window:

1. either make it mouse-scrollable, or

2. disable scrollbar completely (making the window unresizeable) and make the window auto-stretch to fit all icons.


I think this makes a lot of sense. Guys?

I support most of your ideas but not this one (auto-stretch to fit). My floating toolbar has a size I like to keep always no matter what tab I select.

[EvilDragon]

No, I don't mean the floating toolbar, but the ICON SELECTOR window, in Customize menu!

[semiquaver]

ability to change the order by dragging the buttons would be handy...

[EvilDragon]

Originally Posted by semiquaver

ability to change the order by dragging the buttons would be handy...

YES! Without the need for renaming the files in toolbar_icons folder!

[Mercado_Negro]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

No, I don't mean the floating toolbar, but the ICON SELECTOR window, in Customize menu!

Oh! I got it. I was misunderstanding you. Yeah, maybe reaper should store last Icon Selector window size to the .ini

[EvilDragon]

Originally Posted by Mercado_Negro

Yeah, maybe reaper should store last Icon Selector window size to the .ini

This is exactly my intention!

[DarkStar]

I have assigned keyboard shortcuts to the 4 "open floating toolbar" Actions.

When the floating toolbar is already open and focussed (i.e. after I have clicked on one of the toolbar buttons), the shortcuts do nothing (as they need the Arrange view to be focussed).

As the toolbar is not a "full" window it would be valuable if these shortcuts worked even after clicking a toolbar button.

[MADatGOD]

I came in to request "always on top" for the floating toolbars, so I'll just add my +1 for that.

[Futures_Untold]

Originally Posted by gofer

IMO, the best place for a floating toolbar to appear is at the mouse cursor. Opening a toolbar means I want to click a button most of the time. So that button ideally spawns where I am, instead of me travelling to where that button is. Please make that possible. (EDIT: context sensitive would be killer)

+ 1

Absolutely essential.

How about having the option to set up a customisable right-click tool-wheel instead of the standard menus? (One that uses icons instead of a text items like the default menus). Many computer games function with a similar wheel based approach.

[img]http://img710.**************/img710/6650/reapercontextsensitiver.png[/img]

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Would it be possible to have the current floating toolbar float centralised relative to the cursor instead of to the top left corner? (Thanks)

--------------------------------

+ 1 for an always on top option (or completely arrangable/dockable windows)

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[Scoox]

A lot of good ideas, I hope to see these implemented in future releases.

[sebas777]

Lots of great ideas. And +1000 for the tool-wheel (!)

[SoulOne82]

Originally Posted by DarkStar

...when renaming a text button, show the original Action too, e.g. as shown for "Read" in this mockup, so we can easily see what we have renamed, at the moment I would need to Reset the text then Rename it again

[img]http://img196.**************/img196/4500/r3141dsrenamebutton01.png[/img]

in my opinion, this is a must! great idea.

[DanXIV]

Maybe another way of doing this would be adding buttons to right click context menus.

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=50586

DanXIV

P.S.

I just saw the tool wheel, great idea.

[mikeroephonics]

Originally Posted by Futures_Untold

How about having the option to set up a customizable right-click tool-wheel instead of the standard menus? (One that uses icons instead of a text items like the default menus). Many computer games function with a similar wheel based approach.

[img]http://img710.**************/img710/6650/reapercontextsensitiver.png[/img]

WANTWANTWANTWANT!

[hopi]

and just to say it AGAIN.... MORE THAN FOUR tabs!!!

I like the FT's but like to organize tasks for each one [of course] and I can easily have way more types of FT tasks than will fit in 4 tabs...

Sure, I can reload a diff one to a tab, but ya know... that is just as silly nusance way to do it.

[musicbynumbers]

I too would like more tabs a dynamic system where you can add more would be great.

[EvilDragon]

Originally Posted by musicbynumbers

I too would like more tabs a dynamic system where you can add more would be great.

Context-sensitive floating toolbars.