On 16.11.2016 09:55, Sebastian Zartner wrote:
It took a bit, though here's my feedback.
Generally the mesh gradient tool already works very well. So, congratulations and thank you a lot for that!

Though I have several smaller and bigger remarks on it:

- Double-clicking path with gradient tool selected causes program crash
  If you select the gradient tool and double-click a path to devide a row or column, the program crashes.
I can confirm on linux pre3


- Toggling sides between beziers and lines or making them elliptical deselects them
  When multiple corner nodes are selected and you toggle the sides between beziers and lines or make them elliptical, the selection of the nodes is removed. I'd expect the selection to be kept.
+1 for keeping the selection


- Edges display update delayed
  While dragging around the nodes the display of the mesh is updated immediately, though the display of the mesh sides is updated with a delay. It would be better UX if they were updated instantenously

- Alt+B doesn't work
  The shortcut Alt+B to toggle the selected sides doesn't seem to work.
For me Alt + B works. Does your Alt key usually works as expected in Inkscape (to select objects behind objects on top)?


- Hard to distinguish nodes and handles
  With the only difference being the form of the node, corner nodes and bezier handles are hard to distinguish. A different color for corner nodes (like within the vector tool) would improve that.
+1


- Hard to associate handles with nodes
  When bezier handles are near to each other it is hard to distinguish which one belongs to which corner node. Therefore bezier handles and their related corner nodes should be connected through a line like it's done within the vector tool.
I can imagine showing all those lines might be visually too confusing too. Maybe if the lines are super thin, dashed with low density, or only flash briefly when hovering over the handle.


- Dividing rows/columns requires a corner node to be selected
  To devide a row or column through a double-click requires at least one corner node to be selected. This is an unnecessary restriction and should be lifted.
+1


- Snapping and preserving angle via Ctrl or Ctrl+Alt doesn't work
  The status message says that Ctrl allows to snap the angle and Ctrl+Alt to preserve the angle while editing the mesh (like within other tools), though they don't work.

- Status message wrong regarding Ctrl+Shift
  The status message says that Ctrl+Shift allows to scale around a center, though this doesn't apply to mesh gradients, or does it?
+1


- Mesh tool is separate from other gradients
  The mesh gradient tool is just another type of gradient, so it should be part of the existing gradient tool instead of having a separate button within the toolbar.
+1 although it takes some effort to figure out the toolbar options, because not all of them are the same between them.


- Linear and radial gradient tool allows to change mesh gradients but not vice versa
  When the linear and radial gradient tool is selected, you can also change mesh gradients, but when the mesh gradient tool is selected, you cannot edit linear or radial gradients. This inconsistency should be removed, i.e. you should always be able to edit the gradients.
  This goes hand in hand with the above idea of integrating the mesh tool into the existing gradient tool. (This also applies to conical gradients.)
I filed a bug related to this:

Mesh gradient node/handles statusbar text bug
https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/1641445


- Replacing mesh gradients by another gradient type requires to switch to Fill and Stroke
  Unlike when switching between linear and radial gradients, to replace a mesh gradient by another gradient, you need to switch to the Fill and Stroke dialog.
  This is another part of integrating the mesh tool into the existing gradient tool. (This also applies to conical gradients.)

- Creating a mesh requires dragging
  To create a mesh you need to drag the mouse a little. It would be better if a simple click would create a default mesh (spanning over the whole bounding box of the object) and dragging would allow to put up a mesh like creating an object.
Not sure about this, dragging to add mesh was a bit odd for me too, but consistency between tools is the more important, so whatever works for both tools.

 
- Clicking inside object hides mesh
  The display of the mesh gradient is toggled when clicking inside the related object. This is different to the behavior of linear and radial gradients, which stay visible when clicking into the object. This is also an issue regarding the separation of rows and columns via double click, because the mesh gets hidden afterwards.
+1 for consistency between tools


- Toggling tensor points only switches the colors of the selected corner nodes to a mixed color (there are no tensor handles)
  There are no tensor handles displayed on Alt+G. The only thing I see is that the colors of the selected corner nodes get a mixed color applied. (Though I'm not sure how this feature is expected to work.)
Tensor handles don't show up for me either in pre3, but they do in Inkscape 0.92+devel 15229
Maybe they were just disabled for pre3.

 
- Color sampling hard to understand without example
  Picking the colors from underneath the mesh is a very cool feature, though it took me a bit to understand how it works. I'm not sure whether this can be removed in the UI, but this should at least be described in more detail within the wiki.

- Show shortcuts in button tooltips
  Several buttons within the mesh toolbar have shortcuts applied. Those shortcuts should be displayed within their tooltips.
+1 add all the shortcuts!

Mihaela


For what it's worth, I tested the 64-bit version on Windows 7.

Thanks again for this great tool! I really hope mesh gradients get traction among the browser vendors!

Sebastian

On 9 November 2016 at 09:50, Sebastian Zartner <sebastianzartner@...400...> wrote:
Mesh gradients are really great!

On 8 November 2016 at 19:47, Tavmjong Bah <tavmjong@...8...> wrote:

Hi,

Mesh gradients are included in SVG 2 but their remaining in the
specification is on shaky grounds.[1] We need to generate suitable SVG
content using meshes in order to generate enough buzz to get the
browser vendors to take notice.

For what it's worth, the related Firefox (Gecko) bug is here:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1238882
 
With that goal in mind, we would like
see meshes enabled in the 0.92.x release but need help with testing. 

I've just checked into trunk the final GUI improvements to mesh
handling. Please test and give me feedback. (And share any cool content
you creat!) I will be merging the changes into 0.92.x in the next
couple of days. For more information on how to use meshes see:

  http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Mesh_Gradients

I didn't have time yet to try the UI changes out, though I hope to do so the next days to provide some feedback.

Best regards,

Sebastian



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