Core: Tree : Remove useless root item and hide description by default.

[PaddleStroke]

This PR solve this : https://forum.freecad.org/viewtopic.php?t=78555&sid=6c1c30d9b4ae46d34c3b0d929d6ab34e&start=10

It does 2 things :
A - Remove the useless "Application" root item.
B - Hide by default the seldomly used "Description" column. Also when it is hidden, the labels are now hidden too.
Below a comparaison picture : on the left after this PR, on the right before.

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[luzpaz]

CC @MisterMakerNL (just a heads up since you started the forum thread)

[sliptonic]

It's amazing how much better/cleaner that looks.
As a future enhancement, perhaps we could check if any items in the tree have a description (label2) and show the column. That would give the best of both world. People who use the label would see it, everyone else would have clean tree.

[xtemp09]

I use the description column. =/

[PaddleStroke]

Note this is only the default preference. So you can still enable the preference if you want to use it.
Having said that this HideColumn preference doesn't seem to be anywhere in the UI and needs to be entered in the parameter editor. So perhaps it would be best to add it to the Preferences dialog?

[sliptonic]

I use the description column. =/

You're definitely in the minority. I did a google image search for "FreeCAD tree" and couldn't find a single example where someone was using it. Most people use descriptive names instead.

Not saying it doesn't have value, but really an unused feature.

[yorikvanhavre]

I use it too. "Description" is a central item in IFC. But this solution is good to me, indeed the tree looks way less cluttered. Two observations, though:

• Indeed users needing the column might want to restore it and won't know how. Why not add a context menu option to do that?
• The changes in TreeParams.cpp are under a // Auto generated code (Tools/params_utils.py:203) comment. Isn't there a risk that they are overwritten if that script is executed? Shouldn't that script be updated too?

[PaddleStroke]

The tree context menu seems to be a correct solution. Better than to add in preference page. I will have a look to find where the context menu is implemented.
I don't understand the logic of this auto generated code and this python script. Tools/params_utils.py:203 does not contain any reference to this hideColumn parameter. So I guess there's no modification needed in this.
So I checked and found two more places where default where set to false.

Can you please confirm if I'm missing something here ? I'm not sure how this hideColumn is supposed to be set in the first place and when this auto generated stuff is actually called.

[yorikvanhavre]

I also don't understand what that script is needed for... @realthunder maybe you can help here?

[realthunder]

The HideColumn parameter is declared here. Change the second parameter to True. Check out the class document of TreeParam for instruction on code generation. If the change is brief like this one. You can manually change the code here and here.

[PaddleStroke]

Thanks for your explanations @realthunder !
So I add the modification to the python file for the future as well as the manual modifications so that we don't need to generate the code.

So now I'm adding a submenu to add 'Tree settings' to the contextual menu of the tree. In this submenu I will add this 'show/hide description column'. And in the future we can put more settings in here, such at text size and icon size as you implemented in linkstage.

[PaddleStroke]

That's it. I cleaned commits history, added the contextual menu and rebased. This is how it looks :

[sliptonic]

This looks like high-value/low-risk. Can we merge this for 0.21?

[MisterMakerNL]

Looks really nice! And it's prime screenspace we are saving!

[MisterMakerNL]

Is this what is called a regression? Seems to be back in the windows build:

[code]
OS: Windows 10 build 19045
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.21.0.33445 (Git)
Build type: Release
Branch: master
Hash: 21d5b19
Python 3.8.10, Qt 5.15.2, Coin 4.0.1, Vtk 8.2.0, OCC 7.6.3
Locale: Dutch/Netherlands (nl_NL)
Installed mods:

• Assembly3 0.12.0
• Behave-Dark-Colors 0.1.1
• BIM 2021.12.0 (Disabled)
• Dracula 0.0.4
• ExtremeProDark 2.9.0
• ExtremeProLight 1.6.0
• FeedsAndSpeeds 0.5.0
• FEM_FrontISTR 0.1.0
• Freecad-Built-in-themes-beta 1.2.0
• IconThemes
• lattice2 1.0.0
• Nodes 0.1.36
• PieMenu 1.2.7
• ProDarkThemePreferencePack 1.0.0
• Render 2023.2.6
• scanObjects
• SelectorToolbar
• sheetmetal 0.2.59
• SP_Startup
• ToolbarStyle
  [/code]

[adrianinsaval]

perhaps you enabled the column by mistake?

[martinproks]

As @sliptonic wrote:

... As a future enhancement, perhaps we could check if any items in the tree have a description (label2) and show the column. That would give the best of both world...

I'm for this. I'm using Label2 for my comments too / ok I'm minority ;-)

Another note: The 2nd column is headlined as "Description", but the content is Label2. It could be confusing, especially with examples that adds property named "Description": Create a FeaturePython object part I / Adding properties