Hi Bulia,
Thanks very much for the reply. I appreciate you taking the time to followup to my points well.
You mention some good points regarding Corel Draw, and also Xara, regarding shortcuts which don't match up. Although I've worked with many apps, I haven't used those ones so I'll definitely admit my lack of knowledge of them.
I mention Illustrator specifically because it's the most obvious. However many of the conventions I was talking about are in other apps too. Fireworks, Flash, Photoshop, InDesign, (some in Quark), Microsoft Expression off the top of my head. Many of them share the same conventions.
I agree it's important to make sure the changes improve the Inkscape UI overall, and don't just add compatibility for the sake of it. However I think there's some shortcuts & features that are defacto standards and would make adoption far easier. Even if someone does use Corel or Xara, for example, they probably still use some of the other tools above so will be familiar with most of the shortcuts.
I mentioned spacebar because it is the biggest one. I'm surprised it's not implemented. I would strongly suggest that it would be as it's by far one of the most used devices in graphics programs. It's akin to having a web browser without a back button.
You asked for more examples. Another one which I immediately noticed was the operation of the zoom tool. In most tools the shortcut is Z, and it zooms in by default. When holding alt the tools changes to zoom out and the cursor has the minus sign on it. Inkscape uses the shift key for the same function though and adjusting is almost impossible. Most people coming to Inkscape will be used to that behaviour, and I think changing it will make the experience much more comfortable for them.
Another example is the palettes. When trying to adjust the stoke if you click back on the canvas, the palette disappears. It's generally bad practice to have UI elements appear/disappear without obvious user interaction, I think keeping it visible until the user closes it would improve it dramatically. At the moment it feels slightly erratic.
Another thing I've just noticed is there's no obvious way to rotate an object. When selected you can't do it, and there doesn't seem to be a rotate tool either. While there may be some way in Inkscape to do this, it's not immediately obvious, and does not seem to be discoverable either.
Regarding the hand tool. You mention that it is not a one line fix, unlike the zoom tool thing I mentioned which would be easy to fix if people wanted. However, as a user I would probably say that the addition of the hand tool is more important that pretty much any other bug you have listed.
Also, one of the things I mentioned was the node tool. I do agree that Inkscape's seems really great, and an improvement on other apps. However I disagree that it's AI specific. It's also used in Photoshop, Firework & Flash off the top of my head. I'm not suggesting that you change the way that works be any means. Indeed, I really like the way many of Inkscapes tools work, the bezier tool particularly, is a pleasure to use. However, if you changed the graphic, so it was a white arrow with a black outline it would make Inkscape immediately more discoverable.
I mostly agree with the sentiments expressed in your reply. I think Inkscape is really great, I would not feel happy to recommend it to people, which is impressive given it's still relatively new. What I'm suggesting is making Inkscape's UI more discoverable. There are small tweaks (a few mentioned above) and would make it feel more familiar to users coming from other common professional applications. If there's a particular reason to keep something different then that makes sense, but if there's not a good reason, then I would suggest matching some of the conventions to make the features in Inkscape discoverable.
I hope I've explained my position more clearly,
If you have any questions fire away,
- Kevin