https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=440254
Bug ID: 440254
Summary: Too much space required on small desktops.
Product: kstars
Version: 3.5.4
Platform: macOS (DMG)
OS: All
Status: REPORTED
Severity: wishlist
Priority: NOR
Component: general
Assignee: mutla...@ikarustech.com
Reporter: juergen.te...@gmx.net
Target Milestone: ---
SUMMARY
I'm using a small MacBook Air and I'm using multiple desktops to switch
between, however kStars and Ekos are always limited to just one desktop (at
least I was unable to move Ekos to another desktop to have enough space). There
is a lot of wasted space and on the other hand there are lots of checkboxes and
textfields and all together takes much space. Using multiple monitors this
would not be a big deal, however when I'm using this on a single notebook
outside I don't have multiple monitors and this ends up with changing the size
of windows, switching between them and search where other windows are behind
each other. A bigger screen would help a little bit but I think not so much.
I know this is nothing to be solved in short terms. However, there are also
some small improvements that could make our lives easier. On the other hand,
for new users the overwhelming amount of settings is hard to handle - so I
would recommend some small short term solutions and a step by step improvement
of the Ekos UI as a long term solution. I would also like to contribute if this
is okay for you. I'm a developer with experience in UX and I could at least
contribute by help with translations into German language (I have no experience
with Qt, I'm a experienced Swift and C# developer with C++ experience long ago
in the past.
These things could be helpful as future improvements:
1.) Let the user resize the log view control. It can be resized already, but it
shrinks to zero height and cannot be restored to another size, because now its
top border is identical to the bottom of the Ekos window. Include a small
handle to avoid this situation or add another button/check box to show/hide it.
This saves space when the log view is not of concern for the user. When the
screen is large enough you can already resize it back, but do this with cold
fingers on a touchpad outside on a 11" screen and you will end up closing and
reopening Ekos to get the log view back.
2.) Make the buttons on top of Ekos smaller in size. If you don't want to
support a touch screen these buttons are very large and are wasting much space.
Another approach would be to locate them on the left window border. The height
of the window is more limited.
3.) Make some changes to make it possible to hide things not needed. If a user
is using no autofocus device it does not make sense to occupy space on screen
for things the user does not need.
4.) Hide things which are not needed at this time. I.e. when using the
alignment module before it runs it is not required to see the results, but it
is necessary to let the user change things like binning (if supported) and the
scope/camera combination to be used. However, these things are no longer
required when the user clicks on capture and solve, now the results are more
important. Both things could share the same space via a tab controller, so the
user could still switch between them (people often don't like that something is
removed from a software :-)).
5.) If no image is shown inside the image preview (for the settings panel) it
just shows a useless nice image and occupies a lot of space.
6.) General window management: Could you make it possible to move Ekos to a
separate virtual screen on windows/linux/Mac? At least we should find a better
solution to avoid the need for searching a window below multiple others. Often
a message box occurs and is below Ekos or I open the mount control panel and it
is behind Ekos and on top of kStars, this is a bit annoying.
7.) Why does the Indi control panel open on connect? If I need to change things
or something went wrong then its okay, otherwise it should not open.
8.) CCD panel: very confusing:
- When using a DSLR why I have a filter wheel and a cooling option and so on? I
think when we need to configure so many things then why not this? When I don't
need it it could be removed from the UI.
- Why ISO and Gain? Again, one of the two.
- Two folders to save the images? And a combobox for both or remote or locally?
When I set both I could have two paths to be changed, otherwise its only lost
space.
- Type: combobox with light and dark, but also a dark library below?
In general: make the UI much cleaner (and as I see in the forum this seems to
be already a considered topic) - the problem is of course to support those how
have all this hardware and still want to control it without too many additional
clicks. I would like to help here if this is okay, at least I could do the
missing German translations.
Let me know for any support/contribution I can give to make improvements to
Ekos, because I really appreciate what you are doing here!
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