3 Replies Latest reply on Jul 16, 2015 4:16 AM by Jim Wilkinson

    UI Window lament

    Peter De Vlieger
    Peter De Vlieger Jul 13, 2015 10:54 AM

      Why is it that even in SW '15 SP4 it still can't remember the size of a window?

      Example : open the add ins window and it shows you

      you drag it open because afterall your screen is more then tall enough to see the entire screen without having to scroll

      and this way you can see the status of the "other add-ins" in one glance.

      Now it would be very convenient if SW would remember that so that if for one reason or another you want to alter or check the status of an add-in that you could see them all with one click. This however is not to be.

       

      Example 2

      Open the measure window and measure something, let's say the distance between two planes

      Notice how it makes you scroll down or enlarge the window if you would like to see it all?

      This one you can enlarge and it will remember it for the rest of the session.

      Next time you boot SW up however it's back to the truncated view.

      And could somebody please explain to me what the use is of being able to select more then 2 entities to measure if at most you can only see 3 entities in the selection window.

      Is it really that difficult to make it either bigger or even to let it grow dynamically?

      And why is it still deemed necessary to be able to stretch that window to span the entire width and height of your screen(s) (yes, those of us lucky enough to have more then one screen can stretch it that large)?

       

      Are any of these issues addressed in SW '16?

      Or are the UI changes there solely artistic?

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        • Re: UI Window lament
          Jim Wilkinson
          Jim Wilkinson Employee Jul 13, 2015 8:43 PM (in response to Peter De Vlieger)

          Hi Peter,

           

          For the first issue of the add-in dialog not remembering its size, please submit that as a bug to your reseller so they log it. All resizable dialog boxes should remember their size between sessions, but it does not come "for free" from Windows dialogs and is extra programming work to implement it, hence it sometimes gets overlooked.

           

          I can't reproduce the problem of the measure dialog not remembering its size between sessions in SOLIDWORKS 2015 SP04.

           

          For the issue of the selection list size, SOLIDWORKS did not add automatic resizing selection lists until SOLIDWORKS 2016 and these were only implemented for the PropertyManager. In dialogs, all selections lists are fixed size although we may be able to enhance that in the future. We chose a height of 3 rows in measure because the majority of measurements use 2 selections and the second most common using 3 selections. Those are also the most common cases where you want to interact with adding or removing the individual items form the selection list and need to see those items. When selecting many items to get an overall length or area, most users don't need to interact with the individual items in the selection list, but rather select/deselect them in the graphics area or use "Clear Selections" to remove them all. Is there a particular workflow where you need to see all of or interact with the individual selections in the list when there are more than 3 selections?

           

          Finally, regarding your comment: "And why is it still deemed necessary to be able to stretch that window to span the entire width and height of your screen(s) (yes, those of us lucky enough to have more then one screen can stretch it that large)?"

          I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you saying we should limit how large you can resize the measure dialog? If so, why? I am not aware of any windows dialogs that limit resizing to a maximum size (other than dictated by the total available screen space).

           

          Thanks,

          Jim

            • Re: UI Window lament
              Peter De Vlieger
              Peter De Vlieger Jul 16, 2015 3:51 AM (in response to Jim Wilkinson)

              Jim,

               

              Thank you for the responds.

               

               

              1.add-in dialog box  :  I submitted

               

              2. measure dialog box : today I can't reproduce it either, yesterday I could. Strange.

               

              3. selection list size : it is an improvement that you can see 3 selections at once, it used to be only 2 so that when you accidently selected 3 you hardly had a visual clue that you had one to many, now if you need 3 and choose 4 your indication are the scroll arrows next to the selection list.

              I would think it would still be easier, and quicker mind you, to remove the one offending entity from the list then clear the list and add the wanted entities once again.

               

              4. Yes, windows dialogs doesn't limit the max size. The min. size is however set by the programmer.

              e.g.

              mimimum size add-in dialog box

              mimimum size measure dialog box (yep, so small it's of no longer any use what so ever)

               

              So putting an extra few lines of code to limit the max size shouldn't be that much more of a hassle then putting in mimimum size.

              Not all dialog boxes within SW are resizeable. Just some are and some aren't.

              One could argue that it would be too troublesome to figure out what the max size should be because one has to keep into account that the path of an item as well as the name of the item can be pretty long.

              However, this is just a pet peeve of mine.

               

              By the way, notice this on the Add-in dialog box

              Which indicates that one can resize it.

              Notice how it's missing on the measure dialog box (and others).

              You have to admit that it isn't uniform appearance consistently applied.

               

              Have a nice one

              Peter

                • Re: UI Window lament
                  Jim Wilkinson
                  Jim Wilkinson Employee Jul 16, 2015 4:16 AM (in response to Peter De Vlieger)

                  Hi Peter,

                   

                  The default size of the measure dialog is for users who don't actually want to see the text listing...that is collapsed by default. You have to click the arrow button in the upper left to expand it. Then it is resizable. Some users just like to use the onscreen values rather than having the larger dialog. We don't put the resize indicator in the bottom right corner of the measure dialog when it is expanded because the text control showing the results goes all the way to the corner of the dialog and that is where the scrollbar shows if the text listing is truncated. The intent is for this dialog to be very small and we would have to add extra "white space" at the bottom below the text control just to show that resize graphic so we felt it was not worth it. Users can easily tell it is resizable by the cursor change. Other cases fall into similar situations, but I will admit there are likely other cases where there is space for the graphic, but it wasn't added (again, this is not automatic and something the developer must do so sometime it is overlooked).

                   

                  Thanks,

                  jim