An inspector is a specific panel, typically positioned at the right side of the window, that allows to change the properties of the selected object.
As this type of widget is quite old, there are two main variants of inspector:
- Traditional inspector, the one that shows the properties of the object as a list of keys and corresponding values, grouped by category. It is typical for engineering and development tools.
- Modern inspector, that has custom UI for every type of selection. For instance, this is what we observe in Figma, when select rectangle, component or text.
Traditional inspectors are useful, when the amount of objects is big enough to make it hard to support multiple custom UIs. Also they provide consistent unified approach, because it is easier for development, and have relatively higher amount of properties, that are visible simultaneously to the user. But they fail, if the properties require custom visualizations, or if they are more effective for the usage.