How can I simplify my toolbar interface as the list of commands grows? [closed]

Question

I'm writing an internal-tools webapp; one of the central pages in this tool has a whole bunch of related commands the user can execute by clicking one of a number of buttons on the page, like this:

toolbar http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/1928/commands.png

Ideally, all of the buttons would fit on one line. Ordinarily I'd do this by changing each widget from a button with a (sometimes long) text label to a simple, compact icon - e.g.

button labelled "Save" http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/773/saver.png

could be replaced by a familiar disk icon:

Unfortunately, I don't think I can do this for every button on this particular page. Some of the command buttons just don't have good visual analogs - "VDS List". Or, if I needed to add another button in the future for some other kind of list, I'd need two icons that both communicate "list-ness" and which list. So, I'm still considering this option, but I don't love it.

So it's come time for me to add yet another button to this section (don't you love internal tools?). There's not enough room on that single line to fit the new button. Aside from the icon solution I already mentioned, what would be a good* way to simplify/declutter/reduce or otherwise improve this UI?

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*As per Jakob Nielsen's article, I'd like to think that a dropdown menu is not the solution.

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Edit: I'm not looking for input about the icon idea. I'm looking for other solutions. Sorry my example disk icon was a small one; it was just an example. I'm showing a bigger one now to hopefully be more clear.

Answer 1

I would add a More Link Like Google does. See the Top Bar of Google with WeB Images Map More >>

To this more >> drop down you can add logic to add button less frequently used by user or something like that.

Answer 2

If you read Jef (and Aza) Raskin, you'll probably realize that icons are also not a good solution – both were pretty vocal in their dislike for them (with very few notable exceptions). For a start they're even harder to hit than tiny buttons, then their symbols can be confusing, culture-dependent and misleading. We're already good at reading text, parsing and interpreting icons is often slower.

In any case, that button bar looks like it accommodates pretty much anyone and their dog who might be using that product. You might have had some specific scenarios in mind when creating it that should be easy to do and are important. Most likely not all buttons are needed at once for such a task to complete.

Another thing is that maybe not all buttons are even useful at any single state of the application. Can you maybe branch into different sets of buttons, depending on the state. That's only possible however, if each state has clearly defined what actions can be taken. If all buttons are equally pressable regardless of state this won't do anything.

Grouping commands according to related functionality might also be an option. This doesn't have to be done with menu-like idioms, you can also put them into containers with different background color or even color the buttons themselves (just keep in mind color blindness, though). Depending on how related those individual functions are this can be a good way of speeding up interaction. It might requier some training for users to know what the colors refer to but for an in-house tool that's only used by people you know (instead of by arbitrary random ones [which is a problem Microsoft faces quite prominently]) this should pose not much of a problem.