some Shelf themes have large margin offsets (i.e.; the space between the left/right edges of the Shelf - for horizontal Shelves - and where icons start/end). This is not a problem when the theme is applied to a Shelf, but with Drawers it can result in much thicker Drawers than needed.

So, there is a possible solution: because Drawers only ever show a single row of icons, they don't use the vertical icon spacing field. By actually making use of this field in Drawers - and especially by allowing it to go negative - we could use it as a way to reduce an overly large margin offset in a specific theme.

:shock: Mine looks like the last one. The spacing on mine is minimal.

I'm using K-TEK 4D

Won't it screw up the margin size on themes that currently have correct spacing if you change it?

And as I started looking into implementing this, I was forced to eat a hefty dose of humble pie: in v18.8, the margins of Drawers are actually 20 pixels more than they should be. And this without even beginning to 'eat' at the theme's bitmap margins, which was my original idea above.

You see, the default vertical icon margin for Shelves (as it appears in the Icon Spacing dialog) is 19 pixels. In the code to render the Shelf/Drawer this value is added to a fixed 20 pixel value (so 20 pixels + user defined vertical icon spacing). What I did not notice because that part of the code was so old, however, is that the *actual* internal value is 19 pixels less than what shows in the Icon Spacing dialog. So, if the dialog shows 19 pixels for the vertical icon spacing, internally that value is 0. If you reduce it to 10 pixels, the *internal* value is -9.

This number was in turn deducted from that 'fixed' 20 pixels 'buffer zone'. I did not notice that so I thought that simply ignoring the icon vertical space value would do the trick. As a result, Drawers are currently 20 pixels larger than they need to be.

So, with the changes I just made, Drawers will already be by default 20 pixels less 'tall' than they are in v18.8 (you can always increase vertical icon spacing to make up for this). Because I added the icon vertical spacing setting back to Drawers, you can now reduce that size even further (but always within the limits of the theme, there are themes where the margins are already so 'tight' that reducing the vertical icon spacing to a number under 19 pixels will have NO EFFECT whatsoever).

The DarkTech theme is a great way to illustrate these differences because that theme actually features HUGE bitmap margins:

Drawer size in v18.8:


Default Drawer size in next release:


Drawer size in next release with icon vertical spacing set to 0:

Something else I would like to add (provided it doesn't imply a lot of work to implement because of other internal dependencies) is an option to left/center/right justify icons in the Shelf. Seems to be a popular request too.

or in my case

Ok, so I have been thinking a bit more about this. For the sake of simplicity lets just talk about centering icons:

This is the type of feature that only makes visual sense, in my opinion, when you have less than a full row of icons. Once you have just as many icons or more icons than will fit in a single row, icon justification stops having any effect, at least for that first row (all the icon 'slots' are filled anyway).

Of course, once you overflow a single row of icons you could still center the remaining icons in row 2, but my question to you guys is: would you - or indeed SHOULD you - REALLY do this?

It would make my life a lot simpler for various technical reasons if icon justification only has an effect when there are less icons in the Shelf than would fit in a single icon row. Once you get past that point, icons would always be left justified, as it happens now.

This is the difference, for a Shelf with two visible icon rows, between, e.g.;


but once you have more icons that would fit in a single row it would either become

or


I'm voting for the latter.

I think icon centering on the Shelf only makes visual sense (or would only be utilized anyway) when you have less icons in a tab than would fit in a single icon row. After that, it doesn't really matter as the 'intention' of the visual effect is lost (I think).

On the other hand this might go against user expectations...

Hope I was able to explain myself well... what do you guys think?

Ok, so I have been thinking a bit more about this. For the sake of simplicity lets just talk about centering icons:

This is the type of feature that only makes visual sense, in my opinion, when you have less than a full row of icons. Once you have just as many icons or more icons than will fit in a single row, icon justification stops having any effect, at least for that first row (all the icon 'slots' are filled anyway).

Of course, once you overflow a single row of icons you could still center the remaining icons in row 2, but my question to you guys is: would you - or indeed SHOULD you - REALLY do this?

It would make my life a lot simpler for various technical reasons if icon justification only has an effect when there are less icons in the Shelf than would fit in a single icon row. Once you get past that point, icons would always be left justified, as it happens now.

This is the difference, for a Shelf with two visible icon rows, between, e.g.;


but once you have more icons that would fit in a single row it would either become

or


I'm voting for the latter.

I think icon centering on the Shelf only makes visual sense (or would only be utilized anyway) when you have less icons in a tab than would fit in a single icon row. After that, it doesn't really matter as the 'intention' of the visual effect is lost (I think).

On the other hand this might go against user expectations...

Hope I was able to explain myself well... what do you guys think?

Har har...

How about an answer to my question too, please?

EDIT: Or was that your vote? lol

that was actually my vote, left justified