Add support for tool panels

Suppose we have a dozen of commands, like what is found in text editor app and image manipulation app, putting all of them in one view will make a user interface very complex or putting them in menus will make the accessing is uncomfortable for the user. What do you think about best way to handling these commands in Toga?

[freakboy3742]

So - it sounds like what you’re describing here is a “tool palette”, or something like that - a (possibly standalone) window (or windows) that contains dozens of icons, and sometimes other widgets. For example, here’s Pixelmator on macOS (A Photoshop-like image editing app):

The main document window has a toolbar, with some icons controlling overlay, color choice, and so on. But there are multiple other dialogs - most notably, the “Tools” dialog, that contains dozens of buttons, each of which controls the currently active tool.

On macOS, these are an entirely different class of window, called a Panel. The have a distinct thinner titlebar, and they generally aren’t minimizable. When the app loses focus, these panels disappear.

I know GTK has a GtkToolPalette, but I’m not 100% sure how that widget should be included in an overall app structure; looking at screenshots of GIMP, preference is to include these panels “in window” as toolbar-like structures. I definitely don’t know Windows HIG guidelines, but screenshots of Photoshop seem to match GIMP.

So - I’d argue that what you’re talking about isn’t about trying to make menus or toolbars more effective, or about building apps with hundreds of commands - it’s about building tool panels (or some similar name), which is a whole new way to expose functionality. On Windows/GTK, these might end up being implemented with toolbar APIs - but to my mind, they’re a distinct organisational element within an app.

[MuhammadMouradG]

@freakboy3742 add labels please, if there are.