ltt/branches/poly/doc/developer/gui_layout.txt

   1 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
   2 <html>
   3 <head>
   4   <title>GUI Layout</title>
   5 </head>
   6   <body>
   7
   8 <h1>GUI Layout</h1>
   9
  10 <P>
  11 In order to implement the GUI, choices has to be made based on habitual interfaces that we know users are familiar with. The inspiration for these choices came mainly from the Mozilla browser project and also from Openoffice, which are currently used as two userfriendly applications in various Linux distribution at the time of this writing.
  12
  13 <P>
  14 This document describes the layout of the GUI in three sections : containers, menus and toolbars.
  15
  16 <P>
  17 A status bar is also placed at the bottom of the window.
  18
  19 - Containers
  20
  21 elements hierarchy
  22
  23 Window Mainwindow
  24 |->vbox
  25    |->menus
  26    |->toolbar of the main window
  27    |->toolbar of the currently selected viewer
  28    |->notebook
  29    |  |->vpaned
  30    |  |->viewer's widget
  31    |  |->vpaned
  32    |  |->viewer's widget
  33    |  |->vpaned
  34    |  |->...
  35    |->Status bar
  36
  37 - Menus
  38
  39 <P>
  40 Here is a short description of each menu entry
  41 *   by itself means a separator
  42
  43
  44 - File
  45 *New -> *Empty trace set : open a new window with an empty trace set.
  46         *Clone trace set : copy the content of the current window in a new
  47                            window.
  48         *
  49         *Tab : Opens a new tab.
  50 *Open : open a trace set. Calls a file selection dialog.
  51 *Close : close the current window.
  52 *Close Tab : close the current tab.
  53 *
  54 *Add trace : Add a trace to the window's traceset. Calls file selection dialog.
  55 *Remove trace : Removes a trace from the traceset.
  56 *Save : save the trace set. Calls a file save dialog of no current filename.
  57 *Save as : save a trace set. Calls a file save dialog.
  58 *
  59 *Quit : quit the program.
  60
  61 - Edit ? (not needed for now)
  62
  63 - View
  64 *Zoom In : Multiply the zoom factor by a certain quantity.
  65 *Zoom Out : Divide the zoom factor by a certain quantity.
  66 *Zoom Extended : Show the entire traceset's largest time interval.
  67 *Go to time : Keep same zoom, ask user for time to center view on and make
  68               it the current time.
  69 *Show time frame : ask user for time interval to show.
  70               (modify zoom and current event in consequence)
  71
  72 - Tools (this is an example of how viewer's menu entries should look like)
  73 *Move viewer up -> Moves the current viewer up one position.
  74 *Move viewer down -> Moves the current viewer down one position.
  75 *Remove : remove the current viewer
  76 *
  77 *DumpToFile -> *Dump Text (This is a text module which adds graphical menu
  78                            entries)
  79                *Dump binary
  80 * (separator between text tools and graphical tools implies different function
  81    to register each type of menu entries)
  82 *Insert Events View : insert this type of viewer
  83 *Insert ControlFlow View
  84 - Plugins
  85 *Load module : ask the user a module to load (list modules in search path).
  86 *Unload module : list all modules, click to choose, then unload button.
  87 *Add module search path : ask user for a new path (file selection dialog).
  88
  89 - Options
  90 //FIXME *Color : change the color of the currently selected element ?
  91 *Filter : Show traceset's filter option window.
  92 *Save configuration : Save the currently loaded modules/traceset/filters
  93                       to gconf.
  94
  95
  96 (aligned to the right)
  97 - Help
  98 *Content
  99 *About
 100
 101
 102 <P>
 103 - Toolbar
 104
 105 <P>
 106 The toolbar is separated in two parts : like the two lines used in Openoffice. The first one is applying to the top level window (or current tab) while the one below contains the current viewer's toolbar.
 107
 108 <P>
 109 So we have something like this :
 110
 111 <P>
 112 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 113 | Menus                                                                        |
 114 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 115 | Toolbar of the top level window                                              |
 116 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 117 | Toolbar of the current viewer                                                |
 118 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 119 ||Current Tab|                                                                 |
 120 |-----------------------------------------------------------------------------||
 121 ||viewers in vpaned                                                           ||
 122 ||                                                                            ||
 123 ||----------------------------------------------------------------------------||
 124 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 125 | Status bar                                                                   |
 126 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 127
 128
 129 <P>
 130 The toolbar of the top level window is the only one described in this document, as the second one is defined by the viewers and specific to each of them.
 131
 132 <P>
 133 This toolbar is mainly a selection of the menu entries.
 134
 135 <P>
 136 New : New window with empty trace set.
 137 Open : open a trace set.
 138 Add Trace
 139 Remove Trace
 140 Save : save the current trace set.
 141 Save as
 142 *
 143 Zoom in
 144 (Show the current zoom factor, modifiable)
 145 Zoom out
 146 Zoom Extended
 147 Go to time (shows time directly)
 148 Show time frame (Could be a special field showing the time frame)
 149 *
 150 Move up current viewer
 151 Move down current viewer
 152 Delete current viewer
 153 *
 154 Add viewer's specific insertion buttons are added here.
 155
 156
 157
 158 Mathieu Desnoyers, June 2003
 159