Counterintuitive behaviour of editor splitter/unsplitter widgets
Counterintuitive behaviour of editor splitter/unsplitter widgets
- Subject: Counterintuitive behaviour of editor splitter/unsplitter widgets
- From: Greg Hurrell <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2005 14:36:49 +0200
I just filed a report about this in the bug reporter (rdar://
4204785/) but I thought I'd post it here as well seeing as I know
Xcode team members read this list. I realize that UI matters are
often very subjective, but in the case of the editor splitter/
unsplitter widgets (especially the unsplitter) I personally find
myself clicking on the wrong widget at least ten times a day and
dismissing the wrong editor. So here's the report:
--
In Xcode editor windows immediately above the scroll bar is a
splitter widget that shows a picture of an editor window split into
two parts. Hovering the mouse over the widget reveals a tool-tip that
says, "Click to split the editor view".
Once the editor view is split there are now two widgets; the original
"splitter" widget described above and an additional "unsplitter"
widget that shows a picture of an unsplit editor window. The tool-tip
for the unsplitter widget reads, "Click to close the editor view".
I think the behaviour of the unsplitter widget is counterintuitive.
Given that it is a picture of an unsplit editor window, I would
expect that clicking on it would remove the split and show me the
contents of the *current* editor view. Instead, it removes the split
and shows me the contents of the editor view that was previously on
the other side of the split. This behaviour matches the description
of the tool-tip but seems to be the exact opposite of what is
suggested by the picture in the widget and is therefore confusing and
counterintuitive. The problem stems from the fact that the picture
(at least to me) suggests "show me this editor view 'bigger' ie.
unsplit".
This pattern also leads to a "non-reversible" cycle. Basically, if I
click "split" and then immediately click "unsplit" then I would
expect to return to the original state. But what actually happens is
that I start with view A, I click split (view A splits into subviews
A and B) and then I click unsplit (view A disappears), and I end up
with view B.
I therefore suggest that the picture in the unsplitter widget be
changed to incorporate an "X" similar to that used to indicate
"close" in window title bars, Safari tabs, and other places in the
OS. If you wanted to be totally consistent with the "close" motif as
employed in windows and tabs you should probably also move the
unsplitter widget to the top-left, to the left of the forward/back
widgets.
--
Greg
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