It would be wise in the long term to change the
display of the layer control panel (on the right)
so that only the controls of the active panel are
visible.
The first attached image illustrates what happens
to the layer control panels when the main window
is either small, or there are a large number of
panes open in the main window. In this case all
control panels of all panes become unusable because
they are compressed.
Instead, only the currently active pane's control
panel should be displayed so that the settings
in the control panel are not crowded beyond
useability. Also, this would allow additional
controls to be added to the layer control panels
in the future.
However, if you do implement the above described
system, you should also move the active pane marker
so that it is next to the layer control panel.
This would make it easier to see which panel's
layer controls are being displayed. See attached
image #2 for a possible layout for the active
pane markers.
There could also be a hybrid system, such as always
keeping the tab list visible for all layers, and
expanding only the one control panel of the active
pane. See attached image #3 for what this would
look like. This would allow the random access to
any layer control on any active pane as is currently
possible.
image #2: alternative location of active panel marker
image #3: hybrid layer controls display
Logged In: YES
user_id=13489
Agreed, this would be desirable. It would probably be best
to make the layout configurable in this respect -- the
current layout may be clearer for some uses, and should
perhaps be the default as it has the clearer association
between property boxes and panes.
The hybrid display is likely to be tricky to implement using
Qt, and is probably a bit overcomplicated. I prefer the
plain option #2.
Logged In: YES
user_id=13489
Originator: NO
Now implemented using an application preference.