Dock pane manager question
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I’ve created a WPF C# docking pane manager for my own use which will be free for others to use. It will be posted on this web site along with my other free utilities. I used AvalonDock for a commercial project, and although it’s really powerful I found it rather complicated to tweak, and failed to make some desired changes, hence my own version. It is finished apart from the settings for the appearance. I see two ways to do this. The first way is to allow the user to change pretty much any aspect of the appearance such as the corner radius, and the border thickness and brush for panes. The application would come with a canned style that can be changed by the user. I’ve created a dialog that allows just that, so if the font is too small, no problem, the user can change it. If they are colour blind, they can change the pane header colour, or the border colour. There is also support for programmatically overriding the templates for icons, the side bar and so on so that the application developer can add their own branding and make it look like a MegaCorp (TM) product. I’ve added a mechanism so that the user can save their settings as a ‘theme’, and load the preferred theme whenever they want, though they’ll probably just create one personal theme. The second way is to implement themes as intended by Microsoft. Thus the user is given a selection of themes, and loads the one they prefer. This is an all or nothing approach. They can’t tweak the font size, or the pane border colour, they can only choose between one or more hard coded themes, each with it own fixed values for the borders, the brushes and so on. I much prefer the first approach, it’s perhaps unconventional but it’s more useful for the user in my opinion as it gives them far more control. What do other people think? If you have created a product around a dock pane manager, would you be okay with the first way, or are you strongly in favour of the second? Does the ability to undo your branding (colour scheme) annoy you? I suppose it could be the second approach, but with an adjustable font size.
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I’ve created a WPF C# docking pane manager for my own use which will be free for others to use. It will be posted on this web site along with my other free utilities. I used AvalonDock for a commercial project, and although it’s really powerful I found it rather complicated to tweak, and failed to make some desired changes, hence my own version. It is finished apart from the settings for the appearance. I see two ways to do this. The first way is to allow the user to change pretty much any aspect of the appearance such as the corner radius, and the border thickness and brush for panes. The application would come with a canned style that can be changed by the user. I’ve created a dialog that allows just that, so if the font is too small, no problem, the user can change it. If they are colour blind, they can change the pane header colour, or the border colour. There is also support for programmatically overriding the templates for icons, the side bar and so on so that the application developer can add their own branding and make it look like a MegaCorp (TM) product. I’ve added a mechanism so that the user can save their settings as a ‘theme’, and load the preferred theme whenever they want, though they’ll probably just create one personal theme. The second way is to implement themes as intended by Microsoft. Thus the user is given a selection of themes, and loads the one they prefer. This is an all or nothing approach. They can’t tweak the font size, or the pane border colour, they can only choose between one or more hard coded themes, each with it own fixed values for the borders, the brushes and so on. I much prefer the first approach, it’s perhaps unconventional but it’s more useful for the user in my opinion as it gives them far more control. What do other people think? If you have created a product around a dock pane manager, would you be okay with the first way, or are you strongly in favour of the second? Does the ability to undo your branding (colour scheme) annoy you? I suppose it could be the second approach, but with an adjustable font size.
For visual handicaps, high contrast scheme in Windows settings is prefferred; I wouldn't want to have to declare those settings for each app individually.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^] "If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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For visual handicaps, high contrast scheme in Windows settings is prefferred; I wouldn't want to have to declare those settings for each app individually.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^] "If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
Interesting point, thanks. I decided to go with themes, it actually makes the code easier, and users generally don’t need to tinker.
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I’ve created a WPF C# docking pane manager for my own use which will be free for others to use. It will be posted on this web site along with my other free utilities. I used AvalonDock for a commercial project, and although it’s really powerful I found it rather complicated to tweak, and failed to make some desired changes, hence my own version. It is finished apart from the settings for the appearance. I see two ways to do this. The first way is to allow the user to change pretty much any aspect of the appearance such as the corner radius, and the border thickness and brush for panes. The application would come with a canned style that can be changed by the user. I’ve created a dialog that allows just that, so if the font is too small, no problem, the user can change it. If they are colour blind, they can change the pane header colour, or the border colour. There is also support for programmatically overriding the templates for icons, the side bar and so on so that the application developer can add their own branding and make it look like a MegaCorp (TM) product. I’ve added a mechanism so that the user can save their settings as a ‘theme’, and load the preferred theme whenever they want, though they’ll probably just create one personal theme. The second way is to implement themes as intended by Microsoft. Thus the user is given a selection of themes, and loads the one they prefer. This is an all or nothing approach. They can’t tweak the font size, or the pane border colour, they can only choose between one or more hard coded themes, each with it own fixed values for the borders, the brushes and so on. I much prefer the first approach, it’s perhaps unconventional but it’s more useful for the user in my opinion as it gives them far more control. What do other people think? If you have created a product around a dock pane manager, would you be okay with the first way, or are you strongly in favour of the second? Does the ability to undo your branding (colour scheme) annoy you? I suppose it could be the second approach, but with an adjustable font size.