[Lazarus] IDE UI consolidation (was: Re: lfm as pascal)

[Martin Friebe]

Alexander Klenin wrote:
> I think that while Lazarus IDE has many great features, they are not well
> organized. Various Lazarus developers added convenience features with
> a separate user interfaces, so the features are dispersed all over UI
> and hard to discover.
>
> IMHO the good way forward is to consolidate some feature groups into
> a common UI, thus giving greater exposure to all included features.
>
> I realize that may be a controversial topic, as developers might "defend"
> their pet features from consolidation, stating that consolidated UI is less
> convenient than specialized ones, but I think there should be a balance of
> uniformity versus specialization, and right now this balance is tipped far
> on the specialization side.
>
> If there is a general agreement, I can prepare detailed proposal for
> consolidation,
> but as a quick sketch:
> 1) "Find procedure" should be merged into "Code explorer"
>   
Ok by me. (I never used it :) )  It's partly there anyway.


> 2) "Find in files", "Messages" and "Code observer" should be merged together,
> with interface most resembling "Find in files"
>   
IMHO, this (point 2) would  be even more a specialization. Also I can't 
see how those 3 relate at all.

Anyway, for that lets wait for docking.

> 3) "Unit list" (Ctrl+F12) should be merged into "Project Inspector"
> 4) "Find unused units" should be merged into "Unit dependencies"
>   
I was thinking  "Unit dependencies" could also be merged to   "Project 
Inspector"....

 

> ... and so on
>   
what about:
- keybard layouts?
- Menu layouts?

Best Regards
Martin