Re: [Tcllib-devel] BWidget patch 2825354 - fork or L in tree widget - please discuss

[Jeff H. <je...@ac...>]

On 23/07/2009 6:10 AM, Koen Danckaert wrote:
>> Issue:
>> - there is a vertical line from the top of the widget to the first node

>> Addiditional explanation by Jeff:
>>
>> The reason I made that change was to be visually compatible with Windows
>> (older style, as new style is no lines) when you actually have sub-nodes
>> (the [+] and [-] indicators). The line to the top is then inconsistent
>> with the way others draw.
>> You could try and make that check contingent on whether subnodes exist,
>> but I think that may seem odd.
> 
> My opinion is:
> 
> - When the first node has subnodes, it does not really matter. Both
> styles look good visually. It may be inconsistent with some older
> Windows style, but as Jeff points out, the new Windows style is to
> draw no lines at all. So why would we still try to match the older
> style?

I actually disagree on this point.  With subnodes it actually does look 
odd to anchor right to the top.

> - When the first node has no subnodes, it looks strange to have no line.
> - When there are only 1 or 2 nodes in the tree, it looks even more strange:
> 
> pack [Tree .t -padx 2]
> .t insert end root node1 -text "Node 1"
> .t insert end root node2 -text "Node 2"  ;# try with and without this line
> 
> Of course, you could say that you never want a tree with only 1 node,
> but in one of our applications we let the user interactively create a
> tree, and in that case a tree with 1 node may be a necessary
> intermediate state.
> 
> Making the line dependent on whether subnodes exist would also be
> strange: then the line will suddenly (dis)appear when subnodes are
> created/deleted in such an interactive application.

At first I was ambivalent, but I dug up an app where BWidget was still 
used that I wrote (GUI Builder, at http://spectcl.sourceforge.net).  In 
it you will find a few use cases that in review I prefer the current (no 
top anchor line) behavior.  You can find pictures of the various tabs at:

http://docs.activestate.com/komodo/3.5/komodo-doc-guibuilder.html#guibuilder_top

In there, you will see that the node to the top is actually drawn, and 
in the one in sources (with newer BWidget), it isn't.  I actually prefer 
the newer lack of top anchor look, and it does have the single node case 
to start.  I think this also applies to how the tree is used.  When it 
has the classic single root node, it is better without the top anchor 
line displayed, but I could see it as ok with multiple root nodes.

In the end, this can simply be made an option, like -showrootanchor or 
something.

Jeff