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

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