This is an excellent start. A few initial comments:

1. I think the icons could use improvement. I'll work on that.
2. In the "Warnings" tab, if there is a category with 0 warnings, just omit it (e.g. don't say "0 Critical Warnings").
3. There are some XML character references showing up in the warnings tab
4. I'm not sure we really need the separate "Edit Sim" and "Plot/Export" buttons, since they bring you to the same dialog. I would favor condensing them into one.
5. I would center the "Warnings" column data

This looks really nice.

Playing with it for a couple of minutes, if there are warnings then the Plot/Export (and maybe the Edit Simulations?) button should come up with the warnings display. It actually seems a little odd to have two buttons bringing up the same dialog, but open to different tabs. A single button that opens to the edit tab if the sim isn't up to date, or either the plot or the warnings tab depending on whether there are any warnings for sims that are up to date?

I'd suggest another textarea should be for simulation aborts; the stop sign icon would also make more sense for that than for critical warnings (but then I don't know what to use for critical vs normal warnings). Or maybe some sort of explosion icon for aborts?

Playing with it for a couple of minutes, if there are warnings then the Plot/Export (and maybe the Edit Simulations?) button should come up with the warnings display. It actually seems a little odd to have two buttons bringing up the same dialog, but open to different tabs. A single button that opens to the edit tab if the sim isn't up to date, or either the plot or the warnings tab depending on whether there are any warnings for sims that are up to date?

I vote for just one button: "Sim Details", or another name if we don't like that one. Personally I prefer not to have buttons changing names or anything. Always open to "Warnings". Although I'd probably prefer to change the name of the "Warnings" tab to "Messages".

I'd suggest another textarea should be for simulation aborts; the stop sign icon would also make more sense for that than for critical warnings (but then I don't know what to use for critical vs normal warnings). Or maybe some sort of explosion icon for aborts?

An example of a critical warning is "Tumbling under thrust". See the spreadsheet for examples: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yfpcBPWksnH0gIZftQGK9pdxlO1jneulchLwy8Q6O0A/edit?usp=sharing

After thinking for a minute I agree that it makes sense to separate out simulation aborts into their own category, but will need to think about how to distinguish.

In the software I use at work every day, they have "Info", "Warnings", "Critical Warnings", and "Errors" (where "Errors" are equivalent to our sim aborts, that is things that stop the process from running). These are all displayed in a "Messages" tab:

I don't have any examples handy that show Errors; they're in red. In this example you can see that regular and critical warnings are only distinguished visually by the color of the circle (yellow vs. darker yellow/orange.) If we're going to have a separate category for sim aborts, then they should get the stop sign, and we'll have to figure out what to do for the others.

In the software I use at work every day, they have "Info", "Warnings", "Critical Warnings", and "Errors" (where "Errors" are equivalent to our sim aborts, that is things that stop the process from running). These are all displayed in a "Messages" tab:

Ah, Vivado, long live you and your (non-critical) warnings that every developer ignores.

Ah, Vivado, long live you and your (non-critical) warnings that every developer ignores.

Don't get me started. (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻

I get that it's not all too pretty to have the plot button open the plot data tab, but I'm not sure whether it's desirable to only have one "Simulation details" button, because:

1. A 2-click action ("Plot simulation" > "Plot") now becomes a 3-click action ("Simulation Details" > "Plot data tab" > "Plot")
2. Don't overestimate users; a lot of them will probably not even notice that there are multiple tabs in the sim config dialog.

Plotting simulations is just such an important action in OR that I don't want it to be "hidden" in a dialog tab.

Anyway, I'm a bit spent on this PR for the moment, so if you can come up with concrete design improvements, I'd be happy to implement them, but I'll be holding off on the discussions for the time being. 🙂

I vote for just one button: "Sim Details", or another name if we don't like that one. Personally I prefer not to have buttons changing names or anything. Always open to "Warnings". Although I'd probably prefer to change the name of the "Warnings" tab to "Messages".

I agree on not having the button name change, I meant it just changes what tab it opens. I don't really like "Sim Details", but I don't have any better ideas. I really like changing "Warnings" to "Messages".

An example of a critical warning is "Tumbling under thrust". See the spreadsheet for examples: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yfpcBPWksnH0gIZftQGK9pdxlO1jneulchLwy8Q6O0A/edit?usp=sharing

Not any more! As of #2457 tumble under thrust is an abort.

I get that it's not all too pretty to have the plot button open the plot data tab, but I'm not sure whether it's desirable to only have one "Simulation details" button, because:

1. A 2-click action ("Plot simulation" > "Plot") now becomes a 3-click action ("Simulation Details" > "Plot data tab" > "Plot")

My suggestion is if the button opens to the "plot" tab when the sim is up to date and there are no messages, it opens straight to the plot tab. It stays a two click sequence.

2. Don't overestimate users; a lot of them will probably not even notice that there are multiple tabs in the sim config dialog.

Sadly, you are correct. There's every chance they'll never notice Edit and Plot/Export open to the same dialog.

Plotting simulations is just such an important action in OR that I don't want it to be "hidden" in a dialog tab.

Anyway, I'm a bit spent on this PR for the moment, so if you can come up with concrete design improvements, I'd be happy to implement them, but I'll be holding off on the discussions for the time being. 🙂

It's a pretty huge piece of work!

Not any more! As of #2457 tumble under thrust is an abort.

Feel like going to that spreadsheet and changing any line items to "abort", if appropriate? I just changed "Tumbling under thrust". For some reason my custom formatting is not working on that, so it's just gray; if anyone can figure out what's going on there I'd appreciate it.

I get that it's not all too pretty to have the plot button open the plot data tab, but I'm not sure whether it's desirable to only have one "Simulation details" button, because:

1. A 2-click action ("Plot simulation" > "Plot") now becomes a 3-click action ("Simulation Details" > "Plot data tab" > "Plot")

My suggestion is if the button opens to the "plot" tab when the sim is up to date and there are no messages, it opens straight to the plot tab. It stays a two click sequence.

2. Don't overestimate users; a lot of them will probably not even notice that there are multiple tabs in the sim config dialog.

Sadly, you are correct. There's every chance they'll never notice Edit and Plot/Export open to the same dialog.

I can accept that.

This has languished long enough. It's a huge improvement; let's use it for a while and see what concrete changes we want.