Unsolved Noob rage about QT Design Studio’s GUI
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Hi, I’m a GUI design practitioner, a non-programmer, and is a noob to QT Creator, Design Studio.
I’m trying to explore QT Design Studio for GUI design. May I ask if anyone else finds the GUI a bit hard to use? Or is it just me being a stupid noob using it the wrong way? If it’s a noob problem, then my apologies most sincere. All views expressed are my own personal biased noob view, they are in no way “I’m right and you’re wrong”.
Qt Design Studio 1.1 screenshot (see below). I changed the Environment Theme to “Flat Light” because in the default dark theme, I can’t see the outlines of tabs very well, can’t see the highlight (more like “highdark”) of selecting text very well.
Red circle item 1. I have a hard time getting used to the icons and its name.
• “Thumbnail” icon is “studio mode”, to open projects.
• “Document” icon is “edit mode”, to edit code
• “Pen” icon is “design mode”, to edit WYSIWYG graphics.
• “Wrench” icon is “projects mode”, to configure projects.Should the “studio mode” be combined with “projects mode” since they both do “project things”? Pen icon and wrench icon are “usually” use to denote edit settings. Maybe change the Pen to “brush on a palette” icon? And Document to “code” icon?
-2 The position of the drop down list to select a document to open, changes in different “modes”. It’s “annoying” to use because I need to move the mouse cursor to different positions in different mode, when doing the same action of selecting a document to open
-3 “Form editor” and “text editor” tabs are very narrow. It’s too close to the “scrolling bar” also, decent chance of clicking on the wrong item. I have to aim the mouse carefully to click “form editor”, slowing down my already slow-as-sloth tempo. Should the 2 tabs be thicker and on top of the window instead?
-4 Currently I don’t use State/ timeline. Can this whole section be fully closed, so that I can see more of the other sections.
-2 Screen shows “edit mode”. The drop down list changes position, compare to the 1st screen showing “design mode”.
-5 In “edit mode”, project’s file structure view is also changed. Each mode has a different view. Is this on purpose? I have to spend a few secs to locate my file again. Should the structure view stay the same?
-6 As a very shallow person, I always like to see the pretty visual first, before getting interested to know you more. Whenever I click on the “ui.qml” it does not show the WYSIWYG “form editor” screen, it shows the “text code”, I need to click on “form editor” tab to view it. That is 1 more click to do, and 1 more sec of my (shallow) life gone.
-7 In Qt Creator (the yellow box in the 3rd screenshot), the “Grid layout” guidelines are visible (see the thin red lines). In Qt Design Studio, the guidelines are not visible, I can’t see how is the layout divided.
If anyone has little problem using the GUI, pls give this neither young nor old grasshopper some tips on to how to use it correctly.
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@Thug
[Nice nick you've got!]
I don't use Qt Design Studio (in fact I hadn't even heard of it, looked it up and still don't quite get who/why you'd use it), but I suspect for your post here you'll be told this is a user forum and your comments might be best made to the Qt Studio folks.... -
Hi,
As @JonB already noted, this is a user forum. You should bring your detailed feedback to the interest mailing list. You should reach Qt Design Studio's developers/maintainers there.
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@JonB @SGaist thanks for your replies, sorry for posting here, I'm not familiar with the distinction between "user forum" and "Software Company Developer forum/ mailing list". I have registered to join the mailing list.
But from @JonB 's reply and my browsing of forum posts, there seems to be no one using Qt Design Studio? If that is the case, maybe I should use Qt Creator instead, 'cos there are no user champions to ask for help when I encounter problems..
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Hey There, I'm a member of the Design Studio team, just came across this post as i have a google alert set up for DS and saw this in my inbox this morning. I'm sorry there wasn't a response before, I will try and make more of an effort to check in on the forum in the future.
To try and answer some of your questions.
- Mode Bar Icons,
Yes, i more or less agree with these points, at the moment we have exactly the same setup as Creator but we are currently doing a major re-design of the UI for Design Studio. I will add these suggestions to our list.
Studio mode is a welcome screen and for project creation and projects mode is a settings screen, i don't think they do the same things but they do need a clearer design. We are currently working on that and again i will add your thoughts to the internal discussion list.-
In my setup they don't move positions unless i drag the column wider or narrower in a different mode, then it will remember the position it was last in. However the new UI design will be based around dockable widgets with savable user perspectives, so this should be solved in a better way the future.
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Yep, form editor and text editor tabs should go on top like the rest.
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At the moment not but in the re-design that will be possible.
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Same as point 2 right? For me it always positions itself according to where i have previously dragged the column, which may be different between edit and design mode, in which case yes, the left dropdown of the main panel might be in a different place, currently if you want these boxes always in the same place, for now, you need to make the left column the same width in both modes. Hopefully this will be solved in a nicer way when we move to dock widgets.
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For me the project list is the same in Design Mode and edit mode, except in Design mode there is the default bottom split panel which has the file navigator and the project view combined, however the specific views should not change, i.e the projects view should always have the same structure which ever mode / panel it's in. Perhaps you could clarify what you mean here as i'm not sure i understand you.
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Opening any ui.qml file should by default take you to the form editor the first time DS is launched. However you are right in that if you were in the form editor, went to the text view, then opened another ui.qml file it will open in the text, view. So it saves the last known position. I will bring up this with the team but i suspect that most people want it to remember which view they were in before.
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Yes, we should have the layout visualization grids as a default in DS, i will try and get this in.
Hope this helps to answer some questions, I will try and answer any more you have here and please feel free to add suggestions and bugs to our bugtracker here: https://bugreports.qt.io/
Best,
Brook.