How do I resize colums?

[Octopuss]

Could someone explain to me how to resize the left panel's columns without smashing something to pieces please? I don't know what to do - if I try to resize one, the next one enlarges. Going at it from the left only makes the entire panel wider, and from the right I don't even know how to describe the behaviour, because I don't understand what's going on (something enlarges, something doesn't even move, and the priority column always changes size) :(

Edited June 3, 2015 by Octopuss

[GrantSP]

That is an oddity of the Qt framework unfortunately. You'll just have to work from the right and move one column to near where you want it, then move to the next and repeat.

Once you see that your moving of one column also affects columns to the right, you can, sort of, figure out a way to adjust them.

[Octopuss]

Thanks. Ew :(

[Tannin]

Huh? Why would you work from the right? and how is MOs behaviour different from other windows applications?

 

When you move the handle between column n and m then all columns left of n remain unchanged. you resize column n and thereby move column m and all those right of it.

 

So far this is exactly the same behaviour as you find in, say, windows explorer.

The only difference to explorer is that the tables in MO are configured to never have a horizontal scrollbar and not leave unused space empty, so as long as this is possible the right-most column (priority by default) will resize to fill all remaining space.

The same is true when you resize the window or the whole table: It's always the right-most column that grows/shrinks to account for the changed size.

 

That means when moving the handle between n and m, n resizes and the right-most column resizes whereas the columns between are only moved and columns left of n remain the same.

 

Therefore: why would you go from the right? you go from the left because you know that once you've properly sized a column and continue to the next, the one you have sized manually will keep its size. And when you have reached the right-most column you resize the window or the table as a whole to size the right-most column.

[Octopuss]

I somehow managed to make the columns look roughly the way I wanted by randomly pulling them from left and right, pulling my hair in the process.

It's so horribly confusing and counter intuitive I hope I won't have to do it again. I couldn't find any pattern to it. Also, having to resize the entire window in the end is absolutely ridiculous. That's not how it should work at all, in my opinion. I have the size of the program window exactly the way I want it and just want to resize the damn columns.

[GrantSP]

...

So far this is exactly the same behaviour as you find in, say, windows explorer.

...

You and I must a vastly different view of what is the exactly the same behaviour because that is definitely not what Windows explorer does for me.

In explorer the only column that gets adjusted in size is the column that is immediately to the right of the handle. In your example, grabbing the handle between columns M & N results in M being resized and all others just moving left or right to fit. That's because Windows has a padding column in most views at the far right that automatically changes size. The horizontal scrollbar only appears when this padding bar is sized to a minimal width and the window it is in is too small to show the combined widths of all columns.

[DoubleYou]

You and I must a vastly different view of what is the exactly the same behaviour because that is definitely not what Windows explorer does for me.

In explorer the only column that gets adjusted in size is the column that is immediately to the right of the handle. In your example, grabbing the handle between columns M & N results in M being resized and all others just moving left or right to fit. That's because Windows has a padding column in most views at the far right that automatically changes size. The horizontal scrollbar only appears when this padding bar is sized to a minimal width and the window it is in is too small to show the combined widths of all columns.

This is exactly what I notice, and something that has always bugged me in MO. So what we need is for an extra padding column that doesn't affect the horizontal scrollbar to be added, whereas currently the rightmost column stretches and expands like the padding column does in Explorer.