What if we make widget/space selector a two stage design instead of the current two separate bars?
Stage one: the narrow bar (with icons only) demonstrated in June 2024 town hall (for space)
Stage two: expand into the current sidebar (allowing more information) - clickable or non-clickable
- Good for users who just want icons for objects could easily access the options by muscle memory
- Less occupied screen space unless needed and more likely to be kept on screen; good for mobile landscape too.
- Weakness: stage one bar is always nicer looking for objects/spaces with icons… if objects only have names, they would be harder to identify
Method 1
Content display for Stage one: both space and objects
Content for Stage two: full title of space/objects
- This way users with one/few space could utilise this bar as well.
- Treating space and objects equally (since space selector is technically an object selector as well, but just for the space default homepage object)
- Customisability: Have the possibility to users can customise and switch narrow as stage two and broad sidebar as stage one, or always disable one view of sidebar.
- Weakness of this method: the boundary/awareness between space thus authorisation of access for space/object might be reduced
Method 2
Stage one: Further divide bar into two sections, with a line between the space (something like macOS’s dock in left/right position where the top is pinned application, bottom is recent application):
- For Anytype, I suggest Top for space in use and bottom for ‘pinned objects/widgets’ for the space in use.
Stage two:
- Top section for space selector (maybe horizontal display of spaces’ icon?)
- Bottom section for title/full widget
Sleek design suggestion for stage two (not necessary): only display ‘pop-up’ for the requested/hovered option. Something like windows’ taskbar, but rather than object preview, have only title/widget. This design won’t work with the customisability mentioned above in method 1.
Edit: I removed my ideas based on wrong observations.
Vertical/flipping tab might work hand-in-hand with narrow sidebar:
- Reducing the need of an additional tab bar
- Allow pinning of always shown space/object
- Design which prioritising icons might not serve tabs the best since title of objects are probably needed.
- If implemented with method 2, I suggest, for design of stage one, grouping objects with their respective space. This would make working with multiple panes with different objects from different spaces feasible.