Please follow the format below for requesting a feature.
The problem that this feature will solve:
When both the Items panel and the History panel are open, there is not enough space on 12.9 inch iPad to do comfortable design work.
I would like to be able to drag a handle on each of these panels to make the width of them smaller. When in the smallest width, I would want to see the icon showing the object type, the first 3 or so letters of the name, a tiny ellipsis, and the hide or suppress icon.
With these panels both open there is about 125mm width available. By shrinking we could have about 200mm available. That translates to each panel being minimized to 30mm wide.
If an expanded step in history is shown it may have to bubble out of the history panel. Or something more clever than that
If the history panel has to stay as wide as it is, then please make the items panel resizable.
Brief description of the outcomes that you expect from this feature:
This feature should allow me to have both panels open and still work.
What canāt you achieve without this feature?
It is not a blocker, but would make IMO a better UI/UX.
The items panel will become resizable with literally the next release that goes out early next week if everything happens according to schedule. There will be a minimum size though to keep it usable.
Simple resize wouldnāt work well for the history panel as the expanded cards do need some horizontal space to remain usable. But we do have plans there as well for a more compact layout where the steps appear similar to how the main tool menu work right now and the parameters appear in floating cards. It will take a few months to deliver though, but we believe it will work a lot better even on iPad screens.
@Peter_Gy , when I read your reply I wrongly assumed that āresizableā¦ be a minimum sizeā¦ā meant that it would be possible to resize the Items panel smaller. It seems I can only resize larger, which is not what I was looking forā¦
Itās generally a good practice to set a minimum size for these kind of sidebars, so they remain functional and donāt cause confusion / break visually when pushed smaller.
Itās also not really possible to optimize for every available screen size, so there will always be tradeoffs to be made.
Itās generally a good practice to set a minimum size for these kind of
sidebars, so they remain functional
As to wide, they are the opposite or less.
and donāt cause confusion / break visually when pushed smaller.
How would I be confused by getting them as small as I want?
A disoriented user might get it narrow by mistake, OK. But then not being intelligent enough to widen it? I think you slightly underestimate you users.
ābreak visuallyā? Letters being crushed?
Itās also not really possible to optimize for every available screen size, so
there will always be tradeoffs to be made.
If you give users freedom (a good practice), there is no need to optimize.
Nothing is set in stone, as we keep changing the app all the time. For now, this is the decision that has been made, but itās subject to change. The feedback is always useful, and thank you for that!
Itās generally an interesting topic how much freedom one wants to give the users. If itās total freedom, it makes controlling the user experience very very hard. If itās not enough freedom, userās canāt set things to be comfortable. Itās a continuous balancing act that is most likely going on forever. If you donāt optimize for anything, the end product can end up looking / performing average / bad everywhere, in the end, a āmidā product. Not great, not terrible. If you optimize too much on one target device / screen size, you might gain great results there, while the rest could suffer.
@BKE , thanks for the feedback; noted. Iāve forwarded it to the product team. We keep investing in the user experience and trying to make it optimal on every possible device and screen size. I understand that youād like to make the items panel even smaller. Weāll take your feedback into consideration.
I agree with what you say. I also want to make one more push for smaller. Please try to picture this in the discussion of a more narrow Items manager sidebar:
Reduce the width to be the item name to be a 3-4 characters. Recently, @gex suggested having emojiās which would be nice, but there could be implementation difficulties. So an alternative is to use a different character set (I would choose Greek) just for the first character. Then, Iād probably have a number, followed by the meaningful name. I would make my names more unique and as meaningful as possible in the first few characters, and be more verbose in the latter part of the name so when I expanded the item sidebar I could be reminded of the long name. My names might be something like: Ī£12 worm gear motor housing, and Ī2 electronics box . When minimized in size, I would only see āĪ£12ā¦ā and āĪ2 eā¦ā Pretty quickly I would adopt a naming convention, the new short name would be acceptable.
When the sidebar is at the minimum size, reduce the white space between the edge of the sidebar and the icon describing the item type (body, sketch, folder, plane, etc.). Also reduce the white space between the icon and the name of the item. Keep it functional, but think small.
Display the: item type icon, visibly truncated name, and visibility icon (eye) with minimal white space.
To make it dynamic and highly useful, mimic one very cool behavior of the history sidebar into the items sidebar: highlight the item on the design when you hover over the item in the sidebar. Then there is quick visual feedback of exactly what the item is.
I know you canāt tailor for every screen size, but you can reduce the space of the tools and give space back to the design. The tools shouldnāt get in the way of the work.
I have been responsibly for several developments involving user interface long before the G in GUI (since 78 until resent years). It is a rare balance. But sometimes the feedback is valid
Thank you for lending me your ear! I really appreciate what you do with Shapr3D and it is great to have the opportunity to influence.
May I suggest the possibility to mark an item (or items) by some color through a ctrl-click (et al), as a rudimentary way to identify segments - unrelated to the width.
Something like this would be wonderful on the iPad.
There is so much āspaceā aroundā everything -
the grey boarder of the items panel,
the white space around each of the item icons,
white space between the icons and the item name,
And so on.
Also quite large text whit yet more space above and below each item name. Just all feels very spacious. All this could be reduced as the items bar gets smaller. Even the item icons could disappear or reduce.
and have set āOn Hoverā!
