GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 708802
HeaderBars: icon buttons don't have the right width
Last modified: 2014-01-06 16:56:05 UTC
The width of icon buttons is slightly off - they should be 34px wide, but are in fact 33px. It doesn't seem like much, but this missing pixel throws off the visual appearance of the buttons. They don't appear quite square, and the icons inside the buttons are not horizontally centered. I'd ideally like to fix this in Adwaita, but we don't have support for min-width there (bug 708394). In the meantime, is this something that can be resolved on the GTK+ side?
Created attachment 260098 [details] screenshot with modifications The attachment shows some of the changes that I think we need to make to header bars. The image on the far left is the current state (the screenshot is of Documents). Each of the subsequent images makes a modification: * Make the buttons square * Ensure the correct header bar height * Improve the position of the close button and the appearance of the separator Yes, this bug is about a single pixel. It might not seem like much, but it is the difference between buttons being square or not. The eye is sensitive to these things, and while it might not be obvious that something is wrong with the current state, you can tell when something is *right*. When visual elements are evenly spaced and balanced, they feel good and look polished. This stuff does matter.
You cleverly clipped away the title/subtitle combination that requires the header bar to become 'too high'. There is no way around it - if header bars can't be allowed to be that high, then either we need to give up on subtitles, or make them even smaller.
(In reply to comment #2) > You cleverly clipped away the title/subtitle combination that requires the > header bar to become 'too high'. My intention was to demonstrate the effect that small layout issues are having on header bars. > There is no way around it - if header bars > can't be allowed to be that high, then either we need to give up on subtitles, > or make them even smaller. Yes, and I've reported a number of bugs on the subject. See: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=707999#c14
Created attachment 265448 [details] [review] patch I'm not sure why the uneven padding was in there, but it doesn't seem necessary and is clearly the source of the bug.
Created attachment 265452 [details] [review] alternative patch This is a small variant on the previous patch. There's an extra darker line on the bottom of the header bars, which looks like it is part of the padding. The patch removes the 1px from the padding to make things look even. I have to confess that I'm not entirely sure about the mechanics here, but it looks right.