IndigoUI: Page Panel

[tim_occ]

Hi all,

I worked on new widgets for the "Arrange Page" panel.
What do you think?

Features:
- customizable page size
- support of page preview
- vertical or horizontal page orientation
- applying of parent page template by drag and drop
- resorting of pages

PS: 9999 pages ~ 130ms render time with images

[tim_occ]

I worked on a new version for 1.7.0svn

That is the current state.

[a.l.e]

hi

it look nice... and i have some feedback from you:

as far i can tell, the page panel gets useful, when there are lot of pages and -- then -- i guess i would prefer to have the preview to be a/ as small as possible b/ showing as many pages as possible.

i n the screenshot you've submitted, the palette does a good job at rendering the characteristic of the pages (which can be very useful when you need to pick the "right" page), on the other side, seems to contain rather big placeholders: so few pages visible at once.

i'm also eager to see how the pallette looks when the layout is horizontal... this is the feature that imo is really missing in the current version of the panel.

next point: the drag and drop.
while being able to drag and drop feels cool, i'm not sure how useful it is in real life.
people will probably expect to have it, so i'm more than fine that MPs can be dropped onto pages and pages can simply be shuffled around.
but i think that for many use cases, it will be simpler to use an alternative interaction, like "select and apply".

as an example, i would probably want to be able to apply a master page to the currently selected page, without having to drag and drop, just click it (maybe this is already the case in your prototype... i don't know)

it should probably also be possible to select multiple pages at once: for moving them (in facing pages document, one should normally move pairs of pages) or for applying the same master page to multiple pages.
somehow i would like that it gets easier to select four pages and  move them to the end of the chapter, without the need to keep the mouse down and painfully scrolling down by keeping the pointer at the bottom of the list (i've already done that too often in my life...).


finally, scribus currently does not support more than two pages in a spread (and this should probably not change as long as scribus cannot do imposition).
(scribus is still able to open old documents with three pages spread, but i don't think that there is anybody on earth, who is going to open such a document with 1.8 when it will be stable... imo, if you want to be on the safe side, you can add a check to the page palette and tell the user that for this document the palette is disabled).

voilà, it got longer than i was planning, but i hope that you can use some of this feedback to make your work even better : - )

have a nice sunday
a.l.e

[tim_occ]

Hi a.l.e

as far i can tell, the page panel gets useful, when there are lot of pages and -- then -- i guess i would prefer to have the preview to be a/ as small as possible b/ showing as many pages as possible.

Page size can be adjusted, currently you can toggle between 3 sizes (small, medium and large). The screenshot shows medium size.

i'm also eager to see how the palette looks when the layout is horizontal

In a previous version, the page blocks had a floating layout based on palette width. I plan to bring it back.

it will be simpler to use an alternative interaction, like "select and apply".

Good point, I will think about it.

it should probably also be possible to select multiple pages at once

I also thought about it and planned it as an update later.

Thank you for your feedback. BTW: I read some of your tickets in Mantis bug tracker before I started to implement the new widget.

[a.l.e]

perfect!