Toggle (visible/invisible) all floating tools
It would be great to have a keyboard shortcut to hide and show all floating tools with the same key stroke. If you show it again it should be shown at the location and in the same state (e.g. collapsed or expanded) they had been before they were hidden.
Why:
To save space on the monitor I often use floating tools. If I don't need them I drag them to the side of the window or at places of low interest for the current image, etc., I constantly see me dragging the floating windows around the screen. This is not efficient.
Saved workspaces are not an alternative:
Though you can create a workspace with and one without floating tools, the "saved" workspace feature does not do it, for these reasons:
- The saved workspace shows the floating tools at the location and state when the workspace was last saved, not at the location and state the tools were when last made invisible.
- There is no shortcut for specific workspaces
- Switching between workspaces on my fast Windows machine is rather slow
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BeO,
I think that is a great idea. However, might there be some additional considerations that are really worth considering.
As far as I can see, as a session user, floating tools exist for all sessions if one has multiple sessions open. The same set of tools with the tool values that apply to whichever image is currently selected in the currently active session (or catalog, presumably).
Now that would in some way lend itself to a palette of floating tools that could be turned on and off on a toggle but it seems, at first sight, to be something that would not obviously "fit" with the concept of a "Workspace" definition unless a default floating tool palette "workspace" could be referenced by Workspace and have its own "last location of the tool" characteristics defined. Then repeat that with consideration for every open session or catalogue.
All of which starts to sound like a larger project than one might imagine.
Perhaps there is another way of approaching the requirement that might be more generic (including, perhaps, being able to select tools in any tool tab that might be candidates for "hiding" in some situations) and maybe simpler to deliver if starting with a blank sheet of paper for concept development?
(But then there are already Keyboard shortcuts. How many ways are there to deliver the functionality of a wheel without re-inventing the same result?)
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Hi SFA,
When I am having several sessions open, with my self-defined "non-floating" workspace, then when I switch to my self-defined "floating workspace", all session have the same floating tools. If I move a floating tool and/or expand it, it's moved and expanded for every session. In other words the sessions share the state of the floating tools. All is good so far.
All what's needed is an option to quickly hide/show them from the screen. It is not necessary to store / persist each tools state in the (common) workspace for later use after restart of C1. It's also not my request to persist different states depending on the session. My point really is the show / hide all floating tools quickly so that they are out of the way on the screen when I wish to.
Cheers
BeO
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Hi BeO,
Ok, I read your description of the requirement to mean that you would like to retain, for any session, the previous information about which tools were active and where they were positioned on screen and specifically for that session.
In the absence of such a requirement, I completely agree with you. However, I suspect some users might wish to define a Floating Tool Workspace/palette and I guess if one has to gather a list of "chosen" tools and their position on the screen(s) one might as well develop some sort of Floating Tool workspace that can be toggled on and off but retain preferred screen position (for a specified screen size ... ;) ) . That would then seem to satisfy the majority of likely viable user requests.
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Where is your up-vote then? :-)
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Good point.
Added.
In addition to the thoughts above, I have just noticed that with 2 sessions open and an image selected in each displayed in a reduced size window, I have no screen information to tell me which selected image (i.e. which session) is currently active and therefore having its data displayed in the active tools.
Now I rarely work in that way. I may have several sessions open but usually only one active at any time.
However, it does occur to me that with your proposed enhancement, more users might be tempted to work with multiple sessions or catalogues open with floating tools deployed and no way of knowing at a glance which image is currently active.
Does it matter? I'm not sure. Maybe not, or not very much. But it would probably be better if some visible indication for which session/catalogue is currently selected.
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Hi SFA,
Thanks.
When I am working with several sessions open at once I usually know which image in which session I am working with. Indeed the Win10 setting for active title bar color does not work in the C1 main window (it works for the title bar of the preferences dialog though).
Anyways, my requested feature would be useful.
Cheers
BeO
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I agree that one would normally know which image one is working with.
I'm just not sure that would be always true for all users.
Which Preferences dialogue are you referring to?
The C1 System preferences tool I see (V20) has no indication of anything about active session. Indeed I think that is a global rather than session specific tool isn't it?
I would certainly like to check for any differences in that respect.
Agreed that the feature would be useful.
It's up to the developers to decide how to implement things but I would guess that a sort of on/off overlaid "window" that could be configured for visible tools and their positions and saved (with multiple definitions available) would be something that many might find to be the most flexible option. It would align well with the Workspace concept.
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Hi SFA,
I tried to give the active windows title bar a different color in the Win10 settings, e.g. orange. It worked for the Windows Explorer and also for the title bar of the C1 preferences dialog, but not for the C1 main window. Not important for me though.
No, I don't want another window where all floating tools are laid on, as I spread my floating tools around the screen, some are connected, one or the other is a lonely tool at a different part of the screen. A simple toogle switch, all the rest can remain.
cheers
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BeO,
The overlay window would simply be a canvas on which to place the tools as you wish to position them.
The entire canvas could then be saved as a template. If required. Like a workspace. Multiple templates allowed.
All tools could be turned off and on simply by making the canvas invisible/visible as required.
Thanks for checking the Title Bar attributes.
Not really important for me either at this point. But if things change it might become more important and may be important for others.
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Hi SFA,
I understood your idea with the canvas. But this is not what or how I want this to be (this would be different feature request).
I actually like that the floating tools don't need a canvas (or a tool tab panel) so that I can place them individually on the screen where I want them to be. And if I like I can connect them together to one big or to different aggregations.
This way I have more "real estate" e.g. for the viewer between the individual tools, especially (but not only) if one or the other tool is collapsed.
I am satisfied with the current floating tools (and I am hoping we get the output / processing tools back!) with the exception that I would like to toggle their visibility on and off (all at once).
cheers
BeO0 -
The suggestion of a canvas, for want of any better name I can think of at the moment, would be to allow precisely what you have described. In effect a virtual, transparent "window" on which the floating tools are present as they are now but with the option to predefine sets and their screen location for different needs and to turn the entire "window" on and off with a single action. Preferably a single "keystroke" or equivalent.
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If that's a transparent "window" (transparent for the user's sight and for any mouse/pen event) then I don't care. I described my requirement, and I definitely don't want a sight-blocking window/canvas or alike. The implementation details is up to the developers, if they solved the requirement with a transparent or virtual window I would not even recognize it (otherwise it wouldn't be transparent to me, right?).
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Thanks for the new vote.
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