docs: design spec for the badge bar, readouts dock and slide-over panel
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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# Badge bar, readouts dock and slide-over panel -- design
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Date: 2026-11-02. Status: approved in conversation, awaiting written-spec review.
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## Goal
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Replace the sidebar's tab switcher and the separate events pane with a layout built the way bench
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scopes build theirs: setup is reached by *the object it configures* (a badge under the plot), results
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are always on screen (a compact dock), and anything bigger than a readout opens in one slide-over
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panel. The sidebar tabs and the left events pane go away.
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## Why (the problems, as found in the code)
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- **Unreadable tab titles.** `side_view` is pinned at 320 px (`min-sidebar-width` = `max-sidebar-width`
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in `main-window.ui`), so four text tabs ("Measure / Signals / Analog out / Digital I/O") ellipsize,
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and a source can add more.
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- **Hard to find things.** The Signals tab stacks a trigger form of up to 15 rows (plus two
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expanders) on top of the signal list. Cursors and measurements are in Measure, source controls are
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in their own tabs, the header is icon-only, and the trigger/cursor toggles live apart from their
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panels.
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- **The events pane is a different application.** A `GtkPaned` + `GtkRevealer` on the left with its
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own bold title and header, a dragged width that is not saved, thumbnails the rest of the UI does
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not have, and a header toggle that is hidden until events exist.
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## State of the art this follows
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- Tektronix 5/6 Series: a badge bar under the waveform (a badge per channel/math waveform, plus
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Horizontal, Trigger, Acquisition badges); a tap opens *only that item's* settings; results
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(measurements, cursors, search) are a separate bar that does not cover the waveform.
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- Scopy and PicoScope 7: a channel list at the edge and a settings panel that slides in for the
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selected item (PicoScope lets it overlay or squeeze the trace).
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- Saleae Logic 2: one side panel at a time; decoded results also in a list beside the waveform.
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- Keysight InfiniiVision: dialogs that can be undocked so cursor and measurement values show together.
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## Layout
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```
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┌ header: [window 2 s ▾] [Trigger] [Pause] [Cursors] [Dock] [☰] ┐
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├──────────────────────────────────────────────┬────────────────────┤
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│ plot rows ┌───────────┐ │ READOUTS │
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│ │ slide-over│ │ cursors, measures │
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│ │ settings │ ├────────────────────┤
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│ └───────────┘ │ EVENTS (n) │
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├───────────────────────────────────────────────┴────────────────────┤
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│ [●sine][●square][+] … [Trigger ▸][Source ▸]│
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├ status line ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
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```
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### Header bar
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Keeps the time-window control, the Trigger, Pause and Cursors toggles and the overflow menu. The
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Events toggle is removed (Events is always in the dock). The sidebar toggle becomes the **Dock**
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toggle, so a narrow window can still hide the dock. There is no "Window" badge: the header's control
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is the timebase, and a second one would duplicate it.
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### Right dock ("Readouts" and "Events")
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- Fixed width, about 280 px; always on screen, shown but insensitive until the stream has signals
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("disable, do not hide"). It stays an `AdwOverlaySplitView` sidebar, which already gives it its
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own fixed width, the hide toggle and the overlay behaviour on a narrow window
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(`invariants-plot-and-layout.md`).
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- **Readouts** (top): the active cursor values and measurement values, read-only, one compact line per
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value, through the one formatter both panes share (`invariants-readouts-and-cursors.md`).
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An "Edit" affordance opens the slide-over's `measure` or `cursors` page; clicking a measurement row
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opens that measurement's editor.
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- **Events** (bottom): compact rows -- title, time, a small marker; no thumbnails. Insensitive outside
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trigger mode. A "Manage" affordance opens the slide-over's `events` page.
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### Badge bar
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A fixed-height row between the plot and the status line.
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- **Signals** (left): one badge per enabled signal, up to 6; beyond that a single "N signals" badge.
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A badge shows a colour dot and the name, is a drag handle (reorder, or drop on a plot row, which
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replaces today's drag from the signal list), and opens that signal's page (colour, calibration,
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row, math). A trailing `+` opens the `signals` page (the full list, to enable more; the math editor
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entry).
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- **System** (right): **Trigger** shows its state (off / armed / triggered) and opens the trigger
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form; **Source** shows the connection state and the source name and opens that source's pages
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(`SourcePanel` pages, behind a small segmented switch inside the panel when there are several, as
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E-1608 has Analog out and Digital I/O).
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### Slide-over panel
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- Overlays the plot's right edge (about 360 px wide), never the dock; one page at a time; Esc or a
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click outside closes it. The plot is not resized by it.
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- Pages, by id: `trigger`, `signal:<name>`, `signals`, `measure`, `cursors`, `events`,
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`source-<id>`. Each page has its own scroller, so a tall page does not leave a shorter one scrolled
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(the reason the sidebar had a scroller per page).
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- Content: the trigger form (conditional rows, Advanced, Search the buffer), signal and calibration
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settings, measurement add/edit/remove and statistics, cursor options, event actions (Live, Compare,
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Accumulate), the math editor entry, and source pages.
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### Status line
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Unchanged.
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## Components
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New files, because `ui.cpp` is already very large.
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| Unit | File | Responsibility |
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| --- | --- | --- |
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| `BadgeBar` | `ui_badges.cpp` | Builds signal / Trigger / Source badges from the model; emits "open page X"; owns badge drag. |
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| `SlideOver` | `ui_slideover.cpp` | A `GtkOverlay` child of the plot area: revealer + page stack keyed by id; Esc/click-away; open/close API. |
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| `ReadoutsDock` | `ui_dock.cpp` | The compact readouts and the compact events list, reading the same model the panes read today. |
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Reuse, not rewrite:
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- The trigger form, signal list and calibration, measurement editor and cursor options are
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**reparented** into slide-over pages.
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- `SourcePanel{id, title, widget}` is unchanged, so the E-1608 and Flat UDP panels need no change.
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- Only the events *list and actions* of the old pane move; the left `GtkPaned`/`GtkRevealer` and its
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divider sync are deleted.
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## Invariants kept
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- **Layout must not depend on content** (`invariants-plot-and-layout.md`): the dock has a fixed width,
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the badge bar a fixed height, and the slide-over overlays instead of resizing the plot. Rows that
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appear by trigger condition appear inside the slide-over's scroller.
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- **A `GtkOverlay` child is picked wherever its allocation is**: the slide-over is one opaque widget
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aligned to the end edge by margin and width, never a full-area transparent child, so pan, drop and
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hover on the rest of the plot are untouched.
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- The header's Trigger/Cursors/Pause toggles keep their two-way mirroring with the panels.
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## State and session file
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- The session file drops `side_tab` and gains the dock's shown state and width. An old file's
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`side_tab` is ignored (an unknown name is already harmless to `select_side_tab`).
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- The open slide-over page is not saved.
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- The tab ids `measure`, `signals` and `source-<id>` stop being a session format; they remain page ids.
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## What must be rewritten around it
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- **Tour and context help:** steps and help-figure surfaces that point at `side_switcher`,
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`side_stack` and `side_box` (`ui_tour.cpp`, `ui_context_help.cpp`) are re-pointed at the badge bar,
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slide-over and dock, and the tour text is rewritten.
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- **Probes:** the `switcher: policy=... pills=... labels=... images=... pages=...` line and
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`side_tab_probe` become probes that count badges, dock rows and the open slide-over page; the events
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divider probe goes away with the divider.
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- **Keyboard:** `SideTabMeasure` / `SideTabSignals` become "open the measure / signals page".
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- **Docs:** `README.md`, `USER-GUIDE.md`, `docs/claude/*` (architecture, verification,
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probe-readings, the plot-and-layout and gtk-and-chrome invariants), and the Mallard manual's
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figures.
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## Rollout
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Four steps, each its own plan, each leaving the app building, passing the probes and usable.
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1. **Shell.** The plot overlay, the badge bar with Trigger and Source, the slide-over holding the
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existing trigger form and source pages. The sidebar tabs are removed; the existing Measure and
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Signals panels move into a temporary dock so nothing is lost.
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2. **Signal badges.** Per-signal badges, the `+` and "N signals" overflow, drag to reorder and to
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move to a row.
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3. **Compact readouts.** Read-only cursors and measurements in the dock; their editors in the
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slide-over.
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4. **Events.** The compact events section in the dock, the left pane and divider deleted, then the
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tour / help / docs sweep.
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## Risks
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- **Overlay above the GL plot.** The panel must composite and take input correctly above the
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plotter's GL area. The layout editor already places overlay children over the plot, so this is
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expected to work; step 1 confirms it before anything else is built on it.
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- **Reparenting the trigger form.** Its two-way mirroring with the header toggle, `sync_trigger_rows`
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and the locked summary view must keep working from a hidden-by-default page. Step 1 verifies it with
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the existing trigger probes.
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- **Many signals.** The badge bar's six-badge limit and horizontal behaviour are the one place the
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E-1608 (up to about 17 signals) stresses the design; step 2 includes a run on it.
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## Out of scope
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User-arranged or undockable panels, saved layouts of the panels themselves, a touch-specific mode,
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and any change to the plot, trigger, measurement or source engines. Per-source tab names do not
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change.
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