WorldEngine GUI

[Shando]

Hi All,

I have finally(!!!) finished my GUI for the fabulous WorldEngine (http://world-engine.org/) and was wondering if you could provide feedback on which GUI you prefer??

There are two options (unless someone can think of a 3rd of course!!):

The first has the main image displayed at all times and uses a toolbox to move between the options, as shown in the four images below:










The second uses 2 tabs to move between the Maps and the Options as shown in the two images below:





Any help, thoughts, comments would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Shando

PS: Forgot to add that due to the way Qt works, the first option is only really suitable for screens with a Height of 1080+, whereas the second option can be shrunk a little more (though I don't think I can quite get it down to 768 )

[SolarPortal]

Hey Shando

Sounds interesting!

One bit of advice for a Qt Editor is to place your widgets in a ScrollArea and use the Grid placement to keep it all inline. Edit the inner bounds of the scroll area to get a more snug fit. This allows you to shrink the GUI to fit it on other Screen Resolutions

[Shando]

Hi SP,

I did try to use a Scroll Area, but when I shrunk the UI it didn't generate the scroll bars (i.e. they were still greyed out)??

I'll give it another go on a dummy UI and see if I can get it to work.

Thanks

Shando

[SolarPortal]

If the scroll area is set to be a size in the dock widget even if it scales, then the scroll bar should be generated. Or you can make the vertical scroll bar always visible from the properties.

Here is a skyline editor test file to showcase the scroll area and scroll bar:

ScrollAreaTest.zip

(1.6 KiB) Downloaded 1192 times

[planetX]

I think you could arrange the panels like Skyline does, which is basically a mix of these ones you've posted. So it would be a fixed sidebar panel with 4 tabs on top. That's the most intuitive option IMO. The idea is to have both the panel and the viewport always visible, at least the panel you're using.

I know that you asked only about the layout, but I'd suggest to avoid using colours in the UI. Colours are distracting and sometimes disturbing.

Good job, I wish I could do something like this.

[Shando]

Hey planetX,

Thanks for the thoughts....

I have made some changes to the UI as shown below:



I've also added the option to change the 'skin' of the UI ( just in case someone does like colours )

Thanks again

Shando

PS: It's not so hard once you learn the basics of Qt (oh, and Python as well!) In fact, the Skyline system for plugins uses Qt with Lua, so it's definitely worth learning Qt at some point.

[SolarPortal]

That looks more professional now Shando Good job!

[planetX]

Well, those vertical tabs are a clever solution, didn't expect that.

Yeah, now it looks like a program I'd like to use. Keep the good work!