May 2004 - Inkscape Devel - Inkscape Mailman

Re: [Inkscape-devel] pangoification
by bulia byak 16 May '04

16 May '04

>On another note, BULIA, do you have any great thoughts about icons for >the new CLONE commands? Yes, JON, I do have great thoughts about those and many other icons :) but this will need to wait until closer to the release. For now I only cleaned up the Fill & Stroke icons a bit. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Premium: Up to 11 personalized e-mail addresses and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-ca&page=byoa/prem&xAPID=1994&DI=1034&SU=ht…

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Re: [Inkscape-devel] Inkscape review
by bulia byak 16 May '04

16 May '04

>Okay, cool. I'll start implementing a whole series of item-only verbs. As I said, don't make item-oriented variants for _all_ commands, but only for those that make little or no sense for a selection of multiple objects of different types. >I, too, think it should item-oriented. This may complicate the usage of >verbs. Perhaps I will invent a "right-clicked" item in SPDesktop or >SPView, similar to the "selection" stuff. That way once the verb gets >called, it'll know what to take action on. Is there a better way to >handle this? I think the verbs should just take an optional SPItem* attribute, which if set will make them act on that item. That item is easy to figure out by sp_item_at_point, which depending on an argument returns an item with or without going into groups. _________________________________________________________________ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN Premium http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-ca&page=byoa/prem&xAPID=1994&DI=1034&SU=ht…

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Re: [Inkscape-devel] Inkscape review
by bulia byak 15 May '04

15 May '04

>Is there a simple command that will tell me what "sort" of object the >mouse is on? No signle command, but there are macros SP_IS_RECTANGLE, SP_IS_USE, SP_IS_PATH and so on. >- what "mode" the mouse is in (selector, rectangle, text, etc) I think there's a function for that in tools-switch.cpp >- what object is under the mouse. (and notice "multiple selections") The number of selected items is easy to get from SPSelection. >Is there an enum of object types anywhere? At least the sense of object >vs stroke? What do you mean by "object vs stroke"? Maybe a shape (rect, star, etc) vs. arbitrary path? >Also, should the menu be long or deep? Use your judgement. The menu cannot be too short, Inkscape is a complex program. I think using submenus is OK - after all, this is what people have always done in Sodipodi, and some of them even like it, who'd-a-thought... >For example, if multiple items >are selected, the set of boolean operations should be included, but that >would make the top-level menu very long. A different way would be to >make a separate "boolean" submenu... thoughts? Yes, booleans in a submenu sounds good to me. But again, I never use that menu, so cannot really judge its usability. _________________________________________________________________ STOP MORE SPAM with the MSN Premium and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-ca&page=byoa/prem&xAPID=1994&DI=1034&SU=ht…

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Re: [Inkscape-devel] Inkscape review
by bulia byak 15 May '04

15 May '04

One more idea: for item-oriented commands, it would be nice if the command name reflected the type of the object, e.g. "Select Rect", "Select Rect in Group" etc. _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN Premium. Get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-ca&page=byoa/prem&xAPID=1994&DI=1034&SU=ht…

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Re: [Inkscape-devel] Inkscape review
by bulia byak 15 May '04

15 May '04

>Basically, the question is: should the right-click context menu be >selection-oriented or item-oriented? Currently it is item-oriented, >where the rest of the application is selection-oriented. Now that I think of it, item-oriented menu makes a lot of sense. It's a way to do something to one object only, without changing the selection. For example, it would be useful to have commands like: - Select/Deselect: Object (would work the same as shift-click, command name depends on whether the clicked object is selected or not) - Select/Deselect: Object in Group (same as shift-ctrl-click) - Object: Properties (applied to clicked object regardless of selection) - Object in Group: Properties - The most useful commands specific to the object type, such as Object to Path for non-paths, Stroke to Path for objects with visible stroke, Not Rounded for rects, Make Whole for ellipses (if applicable), Unlink/Select Original for clones, etc. Also: Remove Stroke, Remove Fill (useful but not yet implemented as a separate command) etc. However selection-oriented commands also need to be present, but in a section of their own after a separator. These may include relevant dialog openers: Text and Font if only text object(s) selected, Fill&Stroke for everything except clones, etc. These need to be selection-oriented because the corresponding dialogs are selection-oriented. When more than one object selected, this section would also contain group/ungroup, booleans, combine/break apart. Commands that may be applicable to both separate objects and selection (such as Copy) should also be here and work on selection, otherwise it may become confusing. As for Undo/Redo, I don't think these are appropriate for the context menu at all. Any commands that are not directly applicable to an object or selection should be removed from the context menu. So, overall, lots of useful logic may be implemented in this menu, so that opening it will at once give you lots of useful information on what's under mouse and what's selected, even if you do not call any of its commands. Most of this logic is already implemented around the codebase, you just need to gather it all in one place. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Premium includes powerful parental controls and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-ca&page=byoa/prem&xAPID=1994&DI=1034&SU=ht…

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Re: [Inkscape-devel] Inkscape review
by bulia byak 15 May '04

15 May '04

>Oh, right. :P I've changed the text slightly to make it clearer for >me: > >Open a new window with the same document view > ^^^^ I don't like this change. "Same document view" to me sounds like the new view will be in sync with the old one, e.g. zoom in when I zoom in the other window, etc. _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN Premium. Get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-ca&page=byoa/prem&xAPID=1994&DI=1034&SU=ht…

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Re: [Inkscape-devel] Inkscape review
by bulia byak 15 May '04

15 May '04

>When I was doing icon/verb work, I had suggested "Duplicate Window", >which to me says I'm going to get another window, and it's going to be >the same as what I have right now. However, this may not indicate to >other people that it will contain a independently-controlled view of the >same data. (Although I think "Duplicate Window" is more informative >than "New Window" or "New View", it is probably still incomplete.) I cannot think up a way in which a new window would not be an "independently-controlled view of the same data", so I think "Duplicate Window" is perfectly adequate. >Perhaps "Duplicate View Window"? Or "Duplicate Window View"? Ew :) >(Can't we >have menu-based tool tips?) We do. Watch your statusbar as you walk through the menu. _________________________________________________________________ STOP MORE SPAM with the MSN Premium and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-ca&page=byoa/prem&xAPID=1994&DI=1034&SU=ht…

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RE: [Inkscape-devel] Inkscape review
by bulia byak 15 May '04

15 May '04

> * The "Text and Font..." dialog was really difficult for me to find; > I assumed it'd be under the Object menu and had to look through > all the other menus before I found it under Edit. It was also > strange that it was at the bottom of the Edit menu instead of at > the top, like the property dialogs in the Object menu. That's a temporary location. We will have a Text menu later and it will move there. But I agree that Object is a better temporary location for Text and Font. > * Now, of anyone, I probably know best where the marker settings are, > however it really seemed hard to get to. I kept thinking, "Hmm, > where's the line properties again? Oh yeah, the Fill dialog > box..." I'm not sure how this could be improved but it struck me > as counter intuitive. It might make sense to separate a Stroke dialog from a Color dialog, with Color having two tabs for fill and stroke. But I don't want to multiply dialogs unless we have ways to combine/dock/rearrange them easily. > * The right-click context menu needs a *lot* of attention. With the > dialog menu being moved to other menus (which is a great > improvement), I found that I kept wishing to have various things > available from the context menu. True, this is because this is one of the few UI element that I never touched :) and that is because I never use it. Whoever wants to improve it, go ahead, this should not be difficult. > * I pulled up the keyboard shortcuts page, and it's great that it's > so complete, and of course it's beautiful in SVG. However, I found > it very difficult to find stuff in it. There's just sooo much > text... I wanted to search the document but of course we don't > have a ctrl-f Find or ctrl-s Search command Searching in text is certainly doable. Someone simply needs to code it. > * The Object Properties dialog is very odd to me. It *seems* like > for a basic user this would have some very handy and useful things > on it for customizing the way my object looks, but when I look at > it, it's full of rather esoteric features. Another dialog I did not touch. Actually I thought to eliminate it at first, but then decided that it should stay, but completely redesigned. For one thing it will present all cascaded CSS properties for the object (pending AST/libcroco rearchitecturing). The redesign has not started yet :) > What does "printable" > mean, for instance? Does this mean it will show up on the screen > but not the printer? Probably. I never looked into it. Also the "visible" checkbox is always disabled because it's not yet implemented (I don't want to borrow that code from Sodi because it uses sodipodi:visible attribute which is sure to have problems rendering in other viewers). >Also, on the context menu it's called "Item > Properties" but pulls up the Object Properties dialog. Weird! Yep, the context menu needs to take command names and shortcuts from verbs, just as the regular menu does. Volunteers? > would expect the Object Properties dialog to allow me some sort of > way to get to things like text, color, line style, transform, etc. No, it's not an all-in-one dialog. Rather it's supposed to present a bit more low-level access to an object, although higher level than XML editor. > * Shouldn't New Window really be called Duplicate Window or Clone > Window or something? I assumed this command would do the same as > New. Duplicate Window maybe. Anyone else has an opinion? >2. I notice the performance isn't quite as "snappy" as I seem to remember. >Perhaps a consequence of fixing bugs? It's not horrible, but >noticeable. It's a consequence of Fred's new renderer. >3. For the life of me, I've never been able to figure out how to get the >inset, outset, and offset commands to work. I'm sure if I studied the >tutorial I'd figure it out, or if I've used something like them before >in other apps. It "feels" like I should be able to apply it to a path >but that doesn't seem to work right. What exactly does not work? >4. The star tool is set to remember its settings, which seems like a great >idea, but it's really weird to start up a fresh Inkscape and click on it >and instead of getting a five pointed star, to get whatever shape it was >you made the last time you used it. This seems highly inconsistent with >the way the rect and circle tools work - they always give you what you >see on the icon bar. No. They remember their settings too. Try to round a rect's corners and make an arc out of a circle, and you'll get the same next time. So it's all consistent, and I think it's much better that way. The ability to always get "five pointed star" is only good for demos, not for real work. Besides, all these tools have a button on the top panel which resets you to the defaults by a single click. >5. I think we need to rethinkify the calligraphic tool. I played with it >for half an hour to see if I could get something worth putting in the >article but didn't like anything I made. Does anyone use this? What is >it useful for? I wrote about that here. It's a tool created by a person who's not with us, and its code is dense and hard to figure out. More importantly, the tool is fundamentally flawed since it creates filled paths and not paths with shape that would be editable as any other paths. A completely new approach to calligraphic/shaped strokes is in long-term plans, but until then, this tool will have to stay. >6. The undo system can be kind of quirky. For example, click on the line >drawing tool. Draw one line. Start drawing another one but before you >end it, hit Ctrl-Z. Instead of the current line going away, the first >one you drew disappears. And no amount of undoing/redoing seems to be >able to bring it back. Because the second line is not created yet. It's just a plan for a line, not a real object. The last real line you created was the first one. If you want to cancel your non-finished line, press Esc, not Ctrl-Z. > * First, as mentioned above, it's really hard to get to the marker > settings. I keep expecting to right click on my line and hit, > "Marker Properties" or "Arrowheads" or something. Those who wish to work on right-click menu, take note :) > * Strangely, when I was doing the article, all the marker previews > were of the club symbol. But now for some reason they all work > right. Has anyone else noticed this behavior? Carl says he fixed this yesterday. I never got this bug so I cannot attest. > * If you select to turn off Stroke Paint, the marker dropdowns on the > Stroke style page become inactive, yet the line still shows its > arrowheads. Does not happen to me. Clicking on the X button in Stroke Paint makes both the path and its markers disappear. Can you submit a test case where this happens? > of stroke color, so this is super counter-intuitive. I'd suggest > this: Move the marker dropdowns to their own tab, separate from > Stroke style, and make them not become invalid when the stroke > paint is turned off. No, they really belong together with the rest of stroke settings. Separating them only for the purpose of non-graying is wrong. >It'd be wonderful if you could choose the > marker colors for each marker type on that tab page. Yes we have a bug on that. It's not straightforward (SVG does not do that automatically) but I think we can work around that, e.g. by duplicating a marker def and repainting it to match the stroke color. > * For the 'None' setting in the marker dropdown, perhaps show a stub > line with no marker on it. I think that would distract. "None" needs to really stand out, i.e. be unlike all other items. > * The ordering of the markers in the dropdown seems strange. > Partially they're alphabetized, but it feels like they really ought > to be organized by category. They are categorized, more or less. First arrows, then geometric marks, then miscellanea. Within each type, three sizes are arranged from largerst to smallest (hmmm, maybe reverse that?) Also the markers in the current document come first; we need a separator between them and the stock markers. > * The symbols for DistanceRight and DistanceLeft don't really > illustrate the effect. Also, perhaps these could be called > DimensionLeft and DimensionRight? They're too big to fit into the preview. As for the rename, OK with me. > * The arrow style markers work wrong. The tip of the arrow should be > located at the end node of the line. Instead, the end node is at > the middle of the arrowhead. This means that if you draw a line to > a box, and then put an arrowhead on it, the arrowhead will be > partially *inside* the box. We discussed this with Carl recently. The problem is that if you move the marker so its tip coincides with the tip of the line, you can't get a sharp tip for your arrow because the line will show through at the tip. There's no easy workaround for this, and the sharper is your arrow, the farther back you need to move the line end from the tip of that arrow. > * I half expected to be able to hit the "Convert Object to Path" > button and be able to have the marker converted into node path for > manual editing. No idea if that'd actually be of real value, > though. It's in the bug tracker. > * Since there's a None setting for markers, it feels like there > should similarly be a None setting for Stroke pattern, that'd make > the line go away. I wanted to create an object that consisted only > of mid-markers with no actual line. Yes, I wanted to make such a dasharray, but there is currently a bug in rendering zero-length dashes. When that bug is fixed I will add it to the list. > * Instead of making the dropdowns fit the page width, could they be > sized to match the contents? Also, I notice some of the larger > marker previews are cropped - could the dropdown be sized based on > the size of the largest marker? Then you'll have really huge menus because the distance markers are huge. Obviously all marker previews must be in the same scale, but since some of them are very small and some are large, we need a compromise. The size can be tweaked, but cropping the too large ones is inevitable I think. _________________________________________________________________ STOP MORE SPAM with the MSN Premium and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-ca&page=byoa/prem&xAPID=1994&DI=1034&SU=ht…

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Inkscape review
by Bryce Harrington 15 May '04

15 May '04

Hi all, In writing up an article about Inkscape (for LWN hopefully), I took some time to play with a wider variety of features than I normally do, and thought about how new users (like LWN's Grumpy Editor) would approach the tool in general. So I figured I'd share my random thoughts and comments. First let me preface by saying that like everyone else I love the new features and the direction Inkscape's going. It's improved bunches in the months that this project has been active, and it's amazing to realize how much energy has been invested into it. ----- 1. I don't use the software intently enough to have memorized a significant number of the keyboard shortcuts, so I'm still very much a menu-oriented person, so my first comments regard menu items: * The "Text and Font..." dialog was really difficult for me to find; I assumed it'd be under the Object menu and had to look through all the other menus before I found it under Edit. It was also strange that it was at the bottom of the Edit menu instead of at the top, like the property dialogs in the Object menu. * Now, of anyone, I probably know best where the marker settings are, however it really seemed hard to get to. I kept thinking, "Hmm, where's the line properties again? Oh yeah, the Fill dialog box..." I'm not sure how this could be improved but it struck me as counter intuitive. * The right-click context menu needs a *lot* of attention. With the dialog menu being moved to other menus (which is a great improvement), I found that I kept wishing to have various things available from the context menu. * I pulled up the keyboard shortcuts page, and it's great that it's so complete, and of course it's beautiful in SVG. However, I found it very difficult to find stuff in it. There's just sooo much text... I wanted to search the document but of course we don't have a ctrl-f Find or ctrl-s Search command * The Object Properties dialog is very odd to me. It *seems* like for a basic user this would have some very handy and useful things on it for customizing the way my object looks, but when I look at it, it's full of rather esoteric features. What does "printable" mean, for instance? Does this mean it will show up on the screen but not the printer? Also, on the context menu it's called "Item Properties" but pulls up the Object Properties dialog. Weird! I would expect the Object Properties dialog to allow me some sort of way to get to things like text, color, line style, transform, etc. * Shouldn't New Window really be called Duplicate Window or Clone Window or something? I assumed this command would do the same as New. 2. I notice the performance isn't quite as "snappy" as I seem to remember. Perhaps a consequence of fixing bugs? It's not horrible, but noticeable. 3. For the life of me, I've never been able to figure out how to get the inset, outset, and offset commands to work. I'm sure if I studied the tutorial I'd figure it out, or if I've used something like them before in other apps. It "feels" like I should be able to apply it to a path but that doesn't seem to work right. 4. The star tool is set to remember its settings, which seems like a great idea, but it's really weird to start up a fresh Inkscape and click on it and instead of getting a five pointed star, to get whatever shape it was you made the last time you used it. This seems highly inconsistent with the way the rect and circle tools work - they always give you what you see on the icon bar. 5. I think we need to rethinkify the calligraphic tool. I played with it for half an hour to see if I could get something worth putting in the article but didn't like anything I made. Does anyone use this? What is it useful for? 6. The undo system can be kind of quirky. For example, click on the line drawing tool. Draw one line. Start drawing another one but before you end it, hit Ctrl-Z. Instead of the current line going away, the first one you drew disappears. And no amount of undoing/redoing seems to be able to bring it back. 7. I played around with gradients bunches and bunches. I know folks think this could use a lot of improvement, but I found it pretty easy to figure out how to make it work and get good results out of it. Of course, I've been using it for years so probably have too much insider knowledge, but it seemed to do what I needed. 8. Ditto for node editing. 10. Now for comments about markers. :-) I love all the work that's gone into markers. It's awesome to finally see them in play, especially since I know first hand how non-trivial it is to get them to do what we need. I love that finally I can put arrows on lines! But, that said I have lots of comments: * First, as mentioned above, it's really hard to get to the marker settings. I keep expecting to right click on my line and hit, "Marker Properties" or "Arrowheads" or something. * Strangely, when I was doing the article, all the marker previews were of the club symbol. But now for some reason they all work right. Has anyone else noticed this behavior? * If you select to turn off Stroke Paint, the marker dropdowns on the Stroke style page become inactive, yet the line still shows its arrowheads. Of course, the arrowheads are always black regardless of stroke color, so this is super counter-intuitive. I'd suggest this: Move the marker dropdowns to their own tab, separate from Stroke style, and make them not become invalid when the stroke paint is turned off. It'd be wonderful if you could choose the marker colors for each marker type on that tab page. * For the 'None' setting in the marker dropdown, perhaps show a stub line with no marker on it. * The ordering of the markers in the dropdown seems strange. Partially they're alphabetized, but it feels like they really ought to be organized by category. * The symbols for DistanceRight and DistanceLeft don't really illustrate the effect. Also, perhaps these could be called DimensionLeft and DimensionRight? * The arrow style markers work wrong. The tip of the arrow should be located at the end node of the line. Instead, the end node is at the middle of the arrowhead. This means that if you draw a line to a box, and then put an arrowhead on it, the arrowhead will be partially *inside* the box. * I half expected to be able to hit the "Convert Object to Path" button and be able to have the marker converted into node path for manual editing. No idea if that'd actually be of real value, though. * Since there's a None setting for markers, it feels like there should similarly be a None setting for Stroke pattern, that'd make the line go away. I wanted to create an object that consisted only of mid-markers with no actual line. I achieved it by turning the stroke color to none on the other tab, but that didn't seem like the most intuitively obvious way to do it. * Instead of making the dropdowns fit the page width, could they be sized to match the contents? Also, I notice some of the larger marker previews are cropped - could the dropdown be sized based on the size of the largest marker? Anyway, that's that. I know a lot of these things are already in our tracker and todo list, or have very good reasons for being the way they are, but those are my thoughts on it. Oh, and btw, if you'd like a preview of the article, her ya go: http://www.bryceharrington.com/Booleans_article/inkscape_booleans.html I've sent an inquiry to LWN to see if they'd be interested in running it, and plan to have it polished up and published somewhere within a week or so. Bryce

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Re: [Inkscape-devel] Inkscape review
by bulia byak 15 May '04

15 May '04

>No, I know this can be made to work right because I had it behaving >correctly when I first got marker rendering working. If I recall, >there's an offset parameter that can be used in the <def>. If nobody >else gets around to it before me, I'll fiddle around with it, I don't >think it'll be difficult to fix. Offset just moves your marker relative to the node, just as it is moved now. It won't help with the non-sharp tip problem for arrows. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Premium with Virus Guard and Firewall* from McAfee� Security : 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-ca&page=byoa/prem&xAPID=1994&DI=1034&SU=ht…

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