Streamline UI

[MattHag]

Information

• Solaar version: 1.1.11

Additional context The User interface could be cleaner with fewer distractions and a little polishment on button placement etc. Based on the various views I have the following suggestions.

• [x] Call Solaar window Solaar starting with capital letter. #2365

Main window - device selected

The main actions here are configuration or adding rules. However, the impactful Unpair button is too prominently placed to be accidentally touched.

Key/Button Action and Key/Button Diversion only show the status of a single button at a time. It is not posible get to know the status of all buttons at once. The status needs to be visible all at once. A fixed list with the input buttons and the drop-down for the setting is much better. So far these entries are at most 10 keys MX Master and MX Keys. This also improves the situation for #2326 a little bit.

• [ ] Show Key/Button Action and Key/Button Diversion inputs as list with a dropdown per button
• [ ] Move Unpair button to top e.g. directly next to wireless link, to which it relates to
• [ ] Move the info of the device button (lightbulb) to the top right (maybe in line with the device title)
• [ ] Convert the About button to a Menu Bar entry About.
• [ ] Remove the "Quit all" button and use the default close provided by the OS. It is mostly intended to keep it running in the background and on Ubuntu and macOS it is easy to close it completely in the top right Solaar icon shown by the OS.

Main window - receiver selected

• [ ] Main action is pairing here, so the pair button should be prominently placed in the center view below the description

Rule editor

On the long run, there should be a pretty dumbed down, more graphical version of setting up rules. You know which buttons a mouse has and mainly want to configure each of them. The existing unlimited hierarchy gives too much freedom, which adds complexity with little gain. For 99,9% of the use cases it's probably over kill.

Some little improvements, which are easy to add is an improved UI with no need to find the right click menu set up some rules.

• [ ] Rule UI: Split the entries into two columns Condition (left) and Action (right)
• [ ] Add Add rule button
• [ ] Remove unnecessary entries from right click menu like Insert above/below. Other options to merge? KeyUp/Keydown should be just a switch, not a completely different option.
• [ ] Move Save button to the bottom right.
• [ ] Discard changes to the bottom left or left of Save

Quit rule editor dialog (pending changes)

• [ ] Use descriptive button text, e.g. 'Save', 'Discard', 'Cancel'.
• [ ] Add spacing around buttons

About window

No button is necessary there. It is just an info page, which could show everything by default.

• [ ] Additional close button is not necessary, as there's the OS native window close
• [ ] Credits could be shown by default
• [ ] CTRL + W/CMD + W not supported to close window?

More to follow

[pfps]

Moving the Unpair button just above the config panel seems to make it no less likely to be accidentally touched.

Moving the light bulb elsewhere seems reasonable .

What are the "top bar" options? Solaar doesn't take control of the title line.

If the Quit button is removed, there is no way to stop Solaar. Using the close button for this appears worse than the situation for the unpair button.

Pair and unpair are analgous and so placing them in the same location seems reasonable. Both are used only occasionally. It might be possible to ask for confirmation of unpairing.

Having an add-rule button is a good idea. If the three buttons are moved to the bottom they will have to be distinguishable from the area used to enter parameters for conditions and actions.

[MattHag]

If the Quit button is removed, there is no way to stop Solaar. Using the close button for this appears worse than the situation for the unpair button.

Is there a distro, where there's no tray icon and menu at all?

[pfps]

Yes, some systems don't have a suitable system tray application set up.

By the way, why are there no icons in your screenshot?

[MattHag]

That's because all these screenshots are from macOS. There are quite few icons supported as is.