Screenshots / examples

Look and Feel

This paragraph show several examples of look and feel concepts for Lazarus. On the right side is the current layout shown. Please comment...

General features are;

• each dialog has a help button (currently disabled) that will show a help page (hint: the Lazarus help system is format independent, so normally it is sufficient to add a unique help path, like 'IDE/CodeExplorer/RefreshButton')
• all modal shown forms are bsSizeToolWin, non-modal shown forms are bsSizable
• to make Lazarus easier for non english speakers it is recommended to use button glyphs whenever you have a good icon.
• all main controls are accessable with access keys ie. "&Cancel". TODO: What about translations? Per language the access keys have to be determined.

The todo form shows a typical form with buttons. Instead of stretching the buttons across the entire clientwidth (code explorer, project inpector, etc.) a toolbar on top is shown with labeled buttons.

This form shows a typical information dialog. Notice the notebook that splits the information, so that there is not too much information at the same time visible.

This form shows a typical dialog. Captions before controls are right aligned (not well visible in this example though) and the options are grouped under bold labels.

Proposal for preference forms

Here's a proposal for the preference forms used in Lazarus. I would like to focus on the use of treeviews instead of the traditional use of tabs. By using a treeview pages can more easily be divided (less options per page) and on the other hand more options per dialog could be used (perhaps some option dialogs can be merged?). Please add your comments below.

Comments to: Proposal for preference forms

I like the old Environment options more. The treeview only wastes screen estate, and is IMHO too expensive for the marginal benefit (grouping of tabs) it provides. Such dialogs are very suitable for initial computer users, but wasteful for intermediate users. And Lazarus being a programming environment, there will be way more usage of this dialog by people that already know it, than initial users