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[Wish] Option to use toolbar background for divider

Posted: 2009-08-17, 16:36 UTC
by JohnFredC
Currently an empty button displays as a divider in the toolbar. I wish for an option to simply display an empty button-width "space", instead.

Here are two views, the first with dividers, the second employing empty button "spaces".

Many of us have big/wide monitors and since TC now allows two (or more) toolbar rows, it makes good GUI/mousing sense to allow us to loosen the toolbar button spacing somewhat.

I currently use "dummy" buttons mapped to cm_Rereadsource and an icon matching the toolbar background to simulate spaces, but a TC option to automatically create spaces in the toolbar would be very convenient.

I'd also employ "double-wide" buttons (with "double-wide" icons), if TC made that possible.

Posted: 2009-08-17, 18:52 UTC
by petermad
Here are two views, the first with dividers, the second employing empty button "spaces".
It only works when you have chosen "Flat icons" - otherwise the space will just look like - an icon!

I would rather suggest that you can set the with of the space (in pixels) in the Parameters field.

Posted: 2009-08-18, 01:49 UTC
by Boofo
petermad wrote:I would rather suggest that you can set the with of the space (in pixels) in the Parameters field.
How would you go about doing that? I'm not sure I understand.

Rectangle 1-2 ?

Posted: 2009-08-18, 02:30 UTC
by Clo
2JohnFredC

:) Hello John !
…I'd also employ "double-wide" buttons (with "double-wide" icons), if TC made that possible. …
• IIUC, you would like a support for rectangular icons in the ratio H=1 - W=2 ? :roll:

- Well, that's possible in the tool-bars of some softs like XnView or Universal Viewer (among those I've to deal with…)
since the patterns come in fact from bitmaps
- AFAIK, TC supports only square icons *.ICO (alas…) :|
- A (crappy) workaround could be to set 2 adjoining buttons as “½ icons” with the same command¦parameters,
but the spacing (and the button effect when hovering) can't be removed currently, except if I mistake, that's hard-coded…

:mrgreen: KR
Claude
Clo

Re: Rectangle 1-2 ?

Posted: 2009-08-18, 02:43 UTC
by JohnFredC
Hey Clo!
Clo wrote:that's possible in the tool-bars of some softs like XnView
XnView will resize the buttons to fit a rectangular icon? Hmmm. Have you tried that? I doubt it would work considering how XnView extracts each button image from the bitmap (as an offset from the left).
- A (crappy) workaround could be to set 2 adjoining “½ icons” with the same command¦parameters,
That's an approach I've considered. Also, now that the TC toolbar can be on two rows, I've considered a "quad" concept, too...

Patterns are in any shape

Posted: 2009-08-18, 02:52 UTC
by Clo
2JohnFredC

:) Again…

• In XnView and others, the patterns ARE already rectangular on the bitmap you state as the current skin…
- The programme does not resize¦ fiddle with the shape… ;)
- Any ratio is supported under that condition.
- Same for extra icons *.ICO (in XnView only), i.e. , in my own skins I offer always a bunch of such icons
for supplemental commands, they are indeed *.ICO drawn as rectangular, and that works fine !

:mrgreen: KR
Claude
Clo
Note : Please, F5, I've fixed my post above

Posted: 2009-08-18, 14:08 UTC
by petermad
How would you go about doing that? I'm not sure I understand.
Like this to make a 75 pixels wide space:

http://madsenworld.dk/tcmd/buttonwidth.png

Posted: 2009-08-18, 14:16 UTC
by Boofo
2petermad,

Too bad that doesn't work with flat icons. It would be nice to have that available. Thanks for the pic. It makes sense seeing it like that.

Posted: 2009-08-18, 14:21 UTC
by JohnFredC
2Clo

I have responded off-list.

Posted: 2009-08-18, 16:29 UTC
by Balderstrom
I'll refer to an "empty icon" as spacers, for clarity.
With [x] Flat Icons. and 2 spacers, you will get 2 line-divides. Each additional spacer, will add emptyspace between the two line-divides.
With 4 spacers, the empty space in between the 2 line-divides is equivalent to an icons width.

I actually like having line-divides, though I could see adding commands for empty buttons:
Command: #SPACER
Parameters: <percentage_of_current_menu_icon_size>

Command: #SEPARATOR
If the <width> is not specified, it would default to: 50

Thus, if your Menu Icon Size was 24, a value of 50 = 12 pixels.
And if you changed your Menu Icon Size, you would not need to adjust all of the spacers.