GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 172120
put back the Toolbar Handle box
Last modified: 2005-05-04 03:31:18 UTC
the toolbar handle box should be added to Evince If you do not want handle bars there is an existing mechanism for disabling them, there is even a desktop wide setting. I did some research and this was news to me too. I would really like Evince to be consistent with all my other Gnome applications. See the Gnome Preferences section of your desktop menus, choose Menu and Toolbar Preferences and Uncheck "Detachable Toolbars"
/me wonder if Christian would be glad to backport ephy fix to evince :P
What fix? Epiphany doesn't have detachable toolbars, and it won't have them until gtk+ has a decent dock widghet (gtk+ bug 111509).
I don't really see the point in this. We only have one toolbar, so there's need for a grip to rearrange multiple toolbars around. Evince was designed to have the toolbar in the top, the sides are just ridiculous and the bottom is going to give us strange states (that people will file bugs against) with the find toolbar popping up. I think the toolbar grips are a pretty lousy idea in the general case and since we only have a single toolbar I don't see any reason to include them. I'd mark this as a WONTFIX.
> I don't really see the point in this. _Consistency_. Only when you think of the Gnome Desktop as a whole do these kinds of details really begin to matter (and I assume Evince has ambitions to supercede gpdf at some point and become a core Gnome app). It is all the little details that make the difference between a few independant developers doing it for themselves and a developing a fully integrated and consistent desktop. Maybe I'm going about this the wrong way from the top down (asking app developers and trying to modify the HIG) instead of from the bottom up (by somehow changing GTK to build in the handleboxes at a low level hiding them by default if necessary) and take the decision out of the developers hands. But I'm trying to work with what I've got and the how GTK and Gnome currently work and it really sucks trying to convince developers on an application by application basis. I wish there was some way to get this cleared up and done consistently for the whole Gnome desktop. Bryan says toolbar grips are a lousy idea and it is hard to disagree until GTK has a decent dock widget as Christian mentioned but it makes more sense to put it in and hide it until such time as GTK fixes the toolbar docking. The secondary goal of my bringing this up is to encourage developers to try and fix the GTK toolbars rather than taking the easier short term solution of removing the GtkHandleBox altogether. The idea is less compelling for Evince which as a new app has never had handle boxes to begin with but there is a Gnome wide preference for this and I believe it should be used. (I wouldn't even be against turning it off by default to prevent accidental rearraning of toolbars, at least until GTK has a proper working Dock). For what it is worth this was discussed at lenght on the usability mailing list: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2005-March/msg00075.html (I have to admit I am nearly as obsessive as a Mac user when it comes to consistency and usability and I am trying in my own way to help ensure Gnome is polished. As Gnome becomes even more popular I think other users will become more vocal about small relatively superficial details which seem minor by comparision with the challenges Gnome has had to overcome in the past and (like this issue) somewhat irritating for developers but will be nonetheless important if Gnome is to out-do Apple some day.) Sorry for going on and on about this but I've put a fair amount of time into this already and it is a little frustrating that I dont seem to be able to make any progress at all.
I agree that maybe you are going around this the wrong way, maybe you should work to remove the grip instead of trying to get it added ;)
Alan: I'm gonna close this one out now. Thanks for your comments and ideas
Fair enough. I'll try and deal with this some other way. This is not a problem with Evince but rather a Gnome issue.