issue-#32 Folds arrows display

[Josef Templ]

Using fonts with arrows or triangle glyphs implicitly means to use wine detection
because it does not give much sense to search for 'Arial MS Unicode' under wine, for example.
Some center members voted No for Wine detection (the voting is still open).
By voting No one implicitly votes against fonts for folds arrows display
because there is no single font that is appropriate and available on all platforms.
In my opinion, there is no reason against wine detection except may be
for implicitly voting against fonts, but this should not be connected.

- Josef

[Josef Templ]

I could imagine switching to the mentioned triangles because:

1. they provide a consistent look for both open and closed folds.
Currently under Windows and wine the closed arrows are shaped differently from the open arrows.
This is confusing at least for beginners and can only be explained by the fact that no
appropriate arrows were available in any standard Windows font back in the 1990s.

2. the triangles seem to be available under all Windows versions including russian windows and wine.

3. if the triangles are not available on a platform, they could be drawn as the 'DefaultAppearance' like Ivan showed.
In this case even the DefaultAppearance would closely match the intended look of the fold glyphs.
The only difference is the rendering quality but the overall look would be the same.
I would certainly not try to simulate the subpixel rendering of the Windows font engine
for the DefaultAppearance.

4. there were several 'likes' from center members.

5. back to the roots: the very first folding editor (named she, for Simple Hypertext Editor)
developed at ETH Zurich in the course of the Oberon project also used the proposed triangles.

My only concern is that this is a change to the look-and-feel many users are familiar with.
I don't know if it is a real problem or just a minor detail. Therefore I posted a message to
the community forum regarding any concerns about switching the fold glyphs.
Up to now, nobody reported any concerns.

- Josef

[Ivan Denisov]

Peter Kushnir suggested one more interesting alternative. The benefits of his idea are more simple drawing and this folds do not lose the contrast after switching.
http://forum.oberoncore.ru/viewtopic.ph ... 401#p91390

I made demo:
http://blackboxframework.org/unstable/i ... a1.094.zip

The diff:
http://redmine.blackboxframework.org/pr ... 63a053d22f

This idea is really cool and such folds are more intuitive than arrows!

[Robert]

This idea is really cool and such folds are more intuitive than arrows!

Sorry - don't agree.

I can never remember which arrows are expanded and which are collapsed, even though that is easy (the wider hollow arrows are expanded,
the narrow solid arrows are collapsed).

But I can very easily see that all the folds are consistently one way or the other.

With the up-slant & down-slant triangles the difference is just not so obvious to me.


(I also have difficulty remembering which of "\" "/" is Windows, which is URL.
Which is called "slash", "back-slash", "up-slash", "down-slash", "solidus", etc. I maybe have some kind of angle dyslexia.)

Robert

[Robert]

Opening or closing folds does not make a Document "Dirty".

Should it?

[Bernhard]

Opening or closing folds does not make a Document "Dirty".

Should it?

I don't think so, they don't change the content.

[cfbsoftware]

I don't think so, they don't change the content.

That depends on how you define 'content'. The binary representation of the file is changed as all the fold-related information is encoded within the file itself. If you don't save the file after you have manipulated the folds then when you reopen it will have forgotten your recent fold open / close manipulations.

[Ivan Denisov]

Better to make the file dirty!

[Robert]

I don't think so, they don't change the content.

That depends on how you define 'content' ...

Of course this is correct, but you are sitting on the fence regarding my actual question - as am I!

Cheers

Robert

[cfbsoftware]

OK - better to make the file dirty.