The toolbar of ParaView is overloaded to me, there are too many buttons that are always present and for some views of ParaView, almost all button turns gray. I think there are a lot of improvement to bring to this toolbar, here are some change I would like set up :
- For me, a tool button is relevant if it is an action done often during a ParaView or if it is an action by most of the user, that’s why I think some tool button should be deleted : Save Catalyst State and Save Extracts are too specific for being in the toolbar I think
- There is one button Connect and one button Disconnect, they could be merge together to be a conditional button : if we are not connected to any server it is a Connect button, if we are connected to a server it becomes a Disconnect button
- The VCR Controls and Current Time controls take a lot of space in the toolbar and are useless for data who have not time steps, so I think we could try to hide them by default if we haven’t timesteps in our current session, and if we open a data/state file with time steps, then make it appears. This would lighten the interface when working with those kind of data
- For the Color Map for a Data Object, we currently have 3 combobox : the variable we want to color by, if it is multiple components, the component we want to use (or magnitude) and the type for representation (outline, surface, etc.). Here I would suggest to remove the component selection for variable with only one component. This would make appear / disappear the combobox and change the size of the toolbar depending on what we chosen but for me it’s no big deal, but some people might disagree, to be tested
- Several buttons currently offer very similar functionality and could be merged into a single control, complemented by a small arrow to show that multiple options are available.
A simple click would trigger the default action displayed on the button. However, a long press would reveal a menu with alternative actions.
Once a user selects a specific option, it becomes the new default, allowing them to repeat that action with a single click thereafter. While accessing less frequently used actions would introduce a small amount of friction initially, this friction quickly disappears for repeated use.
This approach represents a balanced trade-off: it slightly increases effort for occasional actions but significantly simplifies the interface overall. If we never lighten the toolbar under the assumption that “users are used to it”, the interface risks to become increasingly complex over time, as new buttons continue to be added, it ultimately leads to a toolbar that is overcrowded and harder to navigate. I identified 3 family of buttons :- Reset Range buttons with Reset Range, Rescale Custom Range, Rescale Temporal Range and Rescale Visible Range
- Reset (camera) buttons with Reset, Zoom to Data, Reset Camera Closest and Zoom Closest To Data
- Camera angle buttons with +X, -X, +Y, -Y, +Z, -Z and Isometric
I think there are other improvements to be made to the toolbar, but I’ll leave it at that for now. I’m waiting for your feedbacks