Resize function improvement of Variable Explorer

[mIgLLL]

Issue Report Checklist

• Searched the issues page for similar reports
• Read the relevant sections of the Spyder Troubleshooting Guide and followed its advice
• Reproduced the issue after updating with conda update spyder (or pip, if not using Anaconda)
• Could not reproduce inside jupyter qtconsole (if console-related)
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• Completed the Problem Description, Steps to Reproduce and Version sections below

Problem Description

I find that the 'Resize' function is not so useful since what I wanted when I use the 'Resize' is that I want to take a rough look on the dataset. So, two kind of situation maybe suitable: 1, spyder help me 'Resize' all the variable name length for me to look at all of the variable names fully; 2, spyder help me 'Resize' all the data length for me to look at all of the data themselves fully.

I would show the difference between the original situation and the two suitable situations I proposed.

Original data surface:

This dataset can not show the second situable situation so I add a "test" variable with just a text "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"

Original after 'Resize' surface:

I guess this 'Resize' buttom want to show the suitable situation 1, helping users to take a look at the variable names easily. But just don't work.

Suitable situaion 1: (intend for a full look of variable names)

I don't adjust the variable names precisely but I think this is not a confusing description.

Suitable situation 2: (intend for a full look of data but also the variable names)

I think the second situation is quite useful unless there is an unexpected long variable such as website "http://github.com/spyder/spyder/spyder/spyder/spyder/spyder/spyder/spyder/spyder/spyder/spyder/spyder/spyder", this may make the variable explorer too bloated. But I think this is still a good function, let users choose which to use is a good way.

In conclusion, I think the 'resize' function of variable explorer should be improved into two kinds of adjustments like I described above.

What steps reproduce the problem?

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

Paste Traceback/Error Below (if applicable)

PASTE TRACEBACK HERE

Versions

• Spyder version: 5.1.5
• Python version: 3.8
• Qt version:
• PyQt version:
• Operating System name/version: Win10 19042
  Resolution: 3840x2160

Dependencies

PASTE DEPENDENCIES HERE

[steff456]

Hi @mIgLLL,

This seems an UX/UI request, I'm going to transfer this issue to the ux-improvements repository where we can discuss how it is more suitable to address this problem. @spyder-ide/core-developers what do you think about this?

[mrclary]

I think that, in general, column names will be relatively short but data content can be very long. I, therefore, think that "Resize" would be best to limit to column names, rather than data.

[CAM-Gerlach]

The example shown actually demonstrates both cases; in that there are a number of relatively long column names (which unfortunately can be quite common in real world data, especially in the early exploration phase) with very short or even no data. As such, the above is really "Resize to headers" vs "Resize to headers and values", which is not so different. We could have a Resize to headers button and a Resize to values (which could, unlike the above, actually sizes to the max value length in the column rather than the max(header_length, value_length)), Though I'm not sure how widely useful that would be.