Changes in the TLB Settings dialog box - what is your opinion?

True launch Bar have many-many options. Sometimes I have problems when I need to add one new option. There are two questions: what tab it must be placed to and how to find the place there

In the next version of True Launch Bar I plan to remake the TLB Settings dialog and move almost all options into propeties tree. Test the attached application. This is preview of propeties tree (no real data from your settings just a testing app).

Also it will be great if you can tell me your opinion about this new look. As you see now options can be grouped in different way. Also now it is possible to release the profiles for settings. Some profiles will be predefined and others you can create yourself to change all settings at once.

Download preview application

Hello Yuri

When we first saw it we thought ehh... but when we downloaded it and tried it we were very excited! It works great! It is obvious that it took a lot of work to do this and we would look forward to having this new style.

HMSS Q Section

Looks quite good to me. The different selection methods
are good (tick, drop-down, etc.)

I think that the options do lose some meaning though,
without the old layout.

I don't know what ways people may learn to recognize
the option categories quickly. Different icons or
background graphics, maybe. It wouldn't be good if
finding options didn't become much easier after many
uses. It reminds me a little of regedit.exe

Perhaps you might also consider adding some kind of
status bar or help box under 'ok' and 'cancel'. It could
change to illustrate or explain whatever the chosen
setting affects.

/Mark

Yuri,

Tried the testing application. Looks like a good idea and will give you more flexibility in adding new features without running out of space or tabs. I agree with Mark about making the categories stand out from the tree with different icons or something else.

Also, I think I remember someone saying or asking that TLB would be independent of explorer.exe and the Taskbar to prevent the explorer.exe lockup problem. If you are going to do that, will it be released in conjunction with the new properties tree?

I should add that i'm very pleased to hear about the option
profiles! This will really reduce the option clicking anyhow!

/Mark
(P.S. I guess you did consider the type of option box shown
below. This one is from NetCaptor. Dreamweaver also uses
this style.)

I kinda like it.

Although it looks good, I prefer the options style as shown in mark's screenshot. Most noticable: it allows previews such as shown in the skin or menu options. Furthermore, having just a list of options is kind of scary for people who just started using TLB...


From a programmer's point of view I'd say: nice, the tree looks good. From a user's point of view: please don't. Go for the tree with seperate windows on the right. This is still easy to expand, and the tree would allow for a nicely catagorized structure instead of a whole bunch of tabs.

One more note. I do not plan to move ALL settings into properties tree. Skins selection, registration, toolbars, auto-sensing and about tabs will remain. Property tree will be in the All properties tab and this will be the first tab. Also the settings of colors will be moved into Skins tab with preview. Also I'll add status text to explain whatever the chosen setting affects. The other thing I want to release is quick search needed option(s) by text filter but I still do not know how to do this convenient.

The layout of mark76uk is good, but have same restrictions as TAB view some of groups will be too small and others too big.

The layout of mark76uk is good, but have same restrictions as TAB view some of groups will be too small and others too big.

I don't think that is quite true. Option categories can be
divided by sub-branches according to the quantity of options
within them. Just as the screenshot example divides the
NetCaptor tab related options into three:

Browser Tabs
+-Tab Colors
+-New Tabs
+-Close Tabs

This is the advantage over tabs. You couldn't really have
three sub-tabs within a tab, it would look confusing.

The hardest part with TLB though, would be deciding how to
sub-divide so many similar options.

/Mark

looks great Yuri and makes sense.

llooking forward to the new version

I share PsychoMark's opinion: the new settings screen looks ok, but it requires more searching for the right option, since ALL settings will be in one long list.

Therefore I really prefer the layout posted by mark76uk, and I also agree with him that you could organize options in a tree structure: whenever new options don't fit in a single window, you should spread them over multiple nodes, or maybe even have a scrolling panel with controls...

I share PsychoMark's opinion: the new settings screen looks ok, but it requires more searching for the right option, since ALL settings will be in one long list.

Therefore I really prefer the layout posted by mark76uk, and I also agree with him that you could organize options in a tree structure: whenever new options don't fit in a single window, you should spread them over multiple nodes, or maybe even have a scrolling panel with controls...

I agree with all of this as well, except for the scrolling part. If you run out of room on the right to add controls, just add a new branch to the tree.

I agree with all of this as well, except for the scrolling part.

Indeed, I actually don't know why I mentioned that

Just some more screenshots to convince Yuri that TLB would be in good company with such settings...
[Opera] [Winamp] [Trillian] [Putty] [FileZilla]

hmm... this is really better

Those screenshots posted by Dracula would work/look great in TLB.