Thank you, @Laci_K , @Peter_Gy and @Istvan ,
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 emoji’s 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, I’d 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: Σ12 worm gear motor housing, and
Δ2 electronics box . When minimized in size, I would only see “Σ12…” and “Δ2 e…” 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 can’t tailor for every screen size, but you can reduce the space of the tools and give space back to the design. The tools shouldn’t get in the way of the work.
