The inspectors panel (see screenshot) is a treasure trove of powerful tools. Yet it can also be overwhelming, loaded with options that some of us never use, and accessible via forgettable keyboard shortcuts.
May I propose two tweaks for the developers’ consideration:
Enable users to hide inspectors they never use. For example, I routinely rely on the Info, Content, Document, and Search inspectors. On the other hand, I never ever use the Concordance, AI, Chat, or Versions inspectors. A simple checklist in the Preferences could be implemented to toggle individual inspectors on and off.
Include the respective keyboard shortcuts in the tooltips, which currently only display the inspector name (see screenshot below).
While it sounds useful to make parts of the interface hidable (and I don’t use the Concordance, AI, Chat, or Versions inspector either), such an approach makes providing support a lot harder. Imagine some user turning one of the inspectors off and then (possibly years later) stumbling upon it somewhere else (the forum, the manual). “My DT installation is broken. I deleted and reinstalled everything, but I still don’t have the Concordance/AI/Chat/Version inspector. You must urgently fix DT!”
If you follow the forum threads regularly, you’ll see this kind of post regularly as well. Someone does something, forgets that they did it, and weeks, months, or years later, they start a thread about a missing feature/error/malfunction/whatever in DT.
If I were a developer, I’d be reluctant to implement this kind of UI modification support. There are already enough preference options to confuse users
The suggestion is noted but @chrillek is correct on the support issues. People do and forget many things. They also may not have forgotten something completely but fail to include it when reporting issues. Also, hiding things would break the connection with the documentation to some degree.
I see where you’re coming from @macula - I don’t use several of the features either. That said, I agree with @chrillek and @BLUEFROG on the risks of doing what you suggested.
If it were done one day, in my view it would be tied to an effort to shape the UI into a few different configurations for a few different users/use cases. Then it would not just be a matter of toggling things on and off here and there - this can get confusing - but of switching to modes of using DT.
For now, UI stability is important, I think, and reassuring, at least to me. I myself just ignore what I don’t use. But hey, everyone is different.
There is also a result of hiding things, which is making the UI sometimes less than optimal in terms of layout…
Tongue in cheek, I find the support argument secondary (customers are supposed to benefit, support folks are supposed to suffer…).
More to the point, “hiding” elements from toolbars is a standard and longstanding Apple UI practice. All macOS apps—including DEVONthink—have customizable toolbars for example.
Besides, the hidden inspectors would still be available via the menubar.
Instead of hiding inspectors entirely, there may be alternative approaches to the same “minimalist” ends: for example, “starring” (favoriting) commonly used inspectors and tucking the others away within a dropbox… Options aplenty.
Anyway, thanks for noting the suggestion for future reference.
Not to repeat the excellent points of others in this thread, please keep in mind that you can also modify the toolbar in DT(P/S). That said, you cannot modify the sidebar/inspector pane in, say, Pages or Numbers, either. You can still hide the inspector pane and if you use Keyboard Maestro, you can create a palette to access your favourite items.
This hits the nail on the head: @uimike’s palette idea strikes me as even better than my original proposal of a preference pane. The concept of “pinning” preferred inspectors is another potential option. Whatever works, as long as the inspector panel becomes less intimidating, visually and cognitively.
As a quick tipp: You can even program the trigger in the palette to show and hide the sidebar on certain conditions such as
# Enter Annotations pane (CTRL+3)
if menu entry "Tools>Inspectors>Annotations & Reminders" is not marked then select menu entry "Tools>Inspectors>Annotations & Reminders" else select menu entry "Hide sidebar"
Let’s say you’re writing something and have been told, like Mr. Milchick in Severance, to avoid using long words. You can sort on the length column and find your long words. Or you’re trying to not overuse particular words. You can sort on the frequency column and find the words you use the most.
Just bringing to attention that all of this is systeamtically related to this:
(Often feel in here, that some social energies/ideas could need more active interrelating as they otherwise get lost in redundancy of notes and discussions…)
