Parameter Editor UI/UX issues

[chennes]

(Originally FreeCAD#17351 -- it's not necessary or even desirable to have a single PR that tackles all of the following, just take on whatever is interesting to you.)

• The icons in dir structure just add a lot of noise. Suggest remove. DRY (again).

• Also headings "Group" etc are incorrect size for their importance.

• The centre divider can be dragged all the way to the left, completely obscuring the tree. This would seem to have no reasonable purpose.

• Parameter type icons are contrived, don't communicate well, are used repetitiously, and can be misleading:
  
  Please Remove.

'Edit preferences' popped up some surprises:

• Name can be edited in-place by double-click:
  

• Double-click on Type pops up:
  

• Which is exactly the same as double-click on Value.
  "Enter your number:". Really?

That's too many paradigms for the same thing.

• I did expect a pop-up for Type, given Name and Value can be edited.

I believe users are more and more expecting in-place edit as the norm nowadays.

Search

• "Quick search". What's the significance of "Quick". Begs the question: Where's the slow search? Delete "Quick". a55366e

• The button is "Find...". What is the significance of the "..."? a55366e

• Why the different terms "Find" & "Search"? Consistency please!

• The input box has hint "Search Group" which could mean a lot of things, but I suspect what is intended is "Type group name" or similar? When that is done the "Quick search" title becomes redundant and can be removed. Less is More.

• Is there a protocol for where the search bit should be (top or bottom)? Is suspect it should at the top, but that is not 100% clear to me.

• Typing into the search box creates a hive of activity in the tree. WOAH! BRIGHT RED for matching items. Please NO! Do not use red. Red is for danger, failure, alarm etc etc.

• Pressing "Find..." we discover it duplicates the search for text and offers search parameters. So the text box could be removed and the dialog titles search parameters or suchlike?

• Annoyingly the Find... dialog is another dialog that doesn't hold focus. Click somewhere else and it is gone, and you may spend some time to trying to figure why it can't be opened by pressing Find... again.

Save and Close

• Why "Save to disk"? There's no obvious option to save anywhere else, so "to disk" is noise that should be deleted. a55366e
• Another nasty surprise: Edit some stuff and press "Close". Given the Save button right next door, one reasonably expects that changes will NOT be saved. Wrong! So what's the save button for? How to get out WITHOUT SAVING?
• Also the Save button is oblivious of changes and doesn't alter its state as one might expect.

[dragonfruit-blue]

I'd like to work on this issue.

[dragonfruit-blue]

While working on the Parameter Editor, I noticed that some items listed in this issue already appear to be resolved in the current main branch:

• Group folder icons in the tree view are no longer present
• Parameter type icons in the value table are no longer shown

Other UX items listed here (search behavior, save/close semantics, splitter limits, etc.) appear unchanged.

[chennes]

Hello @dragonfruit-blue -- thanks for your interest in the project. Yes, some of the noted issues are no longer present (and as usual with user-submitted issues it's not 100% clear that all of the things noted are correct). This is a pretty general "UI improvement" project that can be as simple or extensive as you like.