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Bug 40663

Summary:	propsheet in Form Ed should be dedicated to form
Product:	guibuilder	Reporter:	Patrick Keegan <pkeegan>
Component:	Code	Assignee:	dpavlica <dpavlica>
Status:	NEW ---
Severity:	blocker	CC:	dpavlica, iformanek, tmulligan
Priority:	P2
Version:	3.x
Hardware:	All
OS:	All
Issue Type:	ENHANCEMENT	Exception Reporter:

Description Patrick Keegan 2004-03-01 19:44:30 UTC

In the current design, the prop sheet in the Form
Editor is not dedicated to the Form Editor. The
contents reflect the selected node. This causes a
few problems:
*When one is working in the Form Editor, they
probably do not want to get properties on other
sorts of objects.
*Reusing the standard prop sheet means that the
title bar has to be used, which is a waste of
screen real estate.
*"Properties" overload. The title bar has the name
Properties, plus there is a tab named Properties,
plus there are categories named Properties and
Other Properties. This makes it very awkward to
document tasks.

I suggest having the properties simply be part of
the Inspector without the Properties titlebar. If
somebody choose Window | Properties, the Prop
Window would open up in a separate window or on a
tab of an existing window

Comment 1 Tomas Pavek 2004-03-02 09:31:33 UTC

I also noticed the problems with the common property sheet. What you
propose is actually a step back to what we had in NB 3.5. The changes
were made as part of window system redesign and property sheet
rewrite. It's up to HIE to decide about this.

Comment 2 Tomas Pavek 2005-01-12 13:56:59 UTC

There are also other problems related to the global properties window,
e.g. with proper node selection/activation (context actions dependent
on selected node might have problems - like in issue 52188). Overall,
the global property sheet is more error prone.

Unless there is a good reason why the properties should be global for
the whole IDE when a form is opened, I suggest to make the property
sheet dedicated for the form editor only.

Then the question is whether the property sheet should be placed
together with the inspector in one window, or whether it should be a
separate window.