2009-07-09

Eclipse: Find the Breakpoint!

Today's user experience callout is Eclipse JDT. Let's play find the breakpoint:
Find the breakpoints

Here's a hint:
Find the breakpoints

Maybe it's more obvious if you compare with a search hit that doesn't have a breakpoint on the same line:
Find the breakpoints
(The breakpoint is on the top result)

Solutions

The ideal solution would still draw both icons in the same amount of space. After playing around a bit with transparency on the search arrow (verdict: looked terrible), I've come up with two possibilities:
  1. Draw everything as above, but when the mouse hovers near the search result arrow, fade it out to 20% opacity. Fade it back in to full opacity when the mouse leaves the area. (Lots of work.)
  2. A much simpler option would be to move the search arrow about 5px to the left, and chop off its leftmost 3-4 pixels, as in this mockup, to allow seeing both a search result and a breakpoint:
    Breakpoints (mockup)
    Neat, right? What do you think?