On 2010 Dec 12, at 0:08, David Thorp wrote:

> Ok, so at least for you Richard, it's not an issue because it's horizontal, it's just an issue because they could have implemented it better...?


Also, I miss the old, TINY icons that let you switch among the 4 modes with a single click. Now "Preview" and "Layout" (renamed "Edit Layout") are on opposite ends of the toolbar, and "Find" is gone altogether. (Well, not GONE, but done in an entirely different iconic paradigm in an entirely different location.) Yes, mode switching is still available via the menus, the keyboard shortcuts, and the drop-down menu at the lower left, but I made considerably less use of those than I did the icons, which were in the more heavily trafficked upper left corner and thus usually more convenient to where I'm doing my work. I will grant that the new oblong buttons are easier to hit, but they're harder to find and not intuitively grouped together.


> Still, setting the icons to small and removing the text does indeed reduce the screen real estate issue significantly.  In fact, I'd argue that with it set to show icons only and set to small icons, the toolbar takes up no more space than it used to, while having the ability to add to it icons and functionality that either didn't (and perhaps couldn't?) exist in the  vertical status area (eg. QuickFind), or that could replace other buttons that we might otherwise have included on the layout instead.


Well, David, I thank you for that lead, because I was completely unaware that the icons could be rendered smaller and textless, and that does indeed help considerably. I still end up with emptiness (IE, wasted space) occupying the right half of the Status Toolbar, the Formatting Bar, and whatever that bar in between them (the one with the dropdown layout list, "View As" buttons, and mode buttons) is called, but the waste is partially mitigated, and my resentment thereof is partially mollified.