Properties panel has ugly buttons to implement collapsible groups
This issue was created automatically from an original Mantis Issue. Further discussion may take place here.
The current implementation of the new properties panel has these ugly buttons labeled "Properties (PipelineName)" and "Display (DataType)" that act as toggles for collapsing those respective widgets. In the attached screen shot, the buttons in question are those two big blue buttons.
This behavior is pretty terrible. First of all, it just looks ugly. Second, their behavior is unclear (or at least unnatural and inconsistent with other widgets). Buttons should not be used a toggles (see GUI Blooper "Using command buttons as toggles," http://books.google.com/books?id=cIY0JOAkLoYC&pg=PA66&lpg=PA66&dq=gui+blooper+toggle&source=bl&ots=uWwpXi3PqM&sig=pq3jazWL-yimwkcfV5UOrsSKVwk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=UXwiUJXVDsT5ygG4n4HQAQ&ved=0CFUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=gui%20blooper%20toggle&f=false). Even if you do accept their toggle behavior, it is not clear that the action is to collapse a group. Third, the layout does not naturally suggest the grouping of the widgets. The buttons do not make good divisors. (Buttons are no better separators than they are toggles.) It is not as clear at a glance how the widgets group together as it should be.
I think this ability to collapse the properties or display part of the inspector is dubious in the first place. Experience shows that you almost always need to access widgets from both, which is what made the separate Properties/Display tabs so frustrating.
If you really want this behavior, then this should be implemented using the pqCollapsedGroup widget, which is already part of ParaView. It is designed to implement this functionality. Its behavior is clear and it looks much nicer.