Hi John, I've had little need of using gradient editor but I've tried to take a quick look at it anyway, just to be able to answer your request. Please, remember that I'm not a regular user of gradients so I don't have the full picture of this tool and my opinion can be considered as the one from a rooky user. Indeed, it's just a different way of accessing the same functionalities and I just need to get used to them.
One thing I think is not working properly is the management of alpha. I've tried this: - draw a rectangle; - apply a gradient to the fill (let's say from full black to 0% alpha black); - add a couple of intermediate stops (double clicking); - now I want the final stop solid full black (alpha 100%): select the point and RGBA field is 000000ff ? mmmh... ah! but the opacity is 0%! Why this? Well, ok, let's edit the RGBA and write the two trailing 'f's again: backspace... et voila! Why? Well, it's like I wanted it; - now I want the first intermediate stop to be 25% alpha: select the first intermediate stop and... same trick, no alpha but opacity; I don't like this at all; ok let's set the opacity to 25% and RGBA is still 000000ff; - oh yes, but I wanted it red, not black: let's pick the point in the wheel and move it to red (I'm used to edit the RGBA to ff00003f but I've accepted it's not working) and... ugh! the opacity jumps to 100% (ff)! well, ok, let's set the opacity back to 25%... this is a bug, to me; - now, the second intermediate stop must be the same as the first: I'd just copy and paste the RGBA field but it's not working so... ok I'll do it by hand but what if the color and the alpha were more complex? e.g. if they were to be copied from a different object? I'd have to write down to a paper the alpha value, copy and paste the RGBA field with the wrong trailing 'ff's then reset the correct opacity by hand.
Clicking on the 'A' bar moves the opacity slider (sometimes also the bar's cusor but it immedialty jumps back to 255) and that's not intuitive at all.
When editing the gradient you see the currently selected stop in the Fill and Stroke dialog: if you press F1 the rectangle gets selected but the Fill and Stroke dialog stil shows the last gradient stop settings and as soon as you change anything the change is applied to the rectangle destroying the gradient. The Fill and Stroke dialog should always reflect the state of the currently selected object and I think that "recycling" it for the gradient tool makes confusion during transitions from different tools. Everything should be more consistent.
If you create a second rectangle and while editing a second gradient on its fill you select the first (created before) gradient, the second gradient is deleted and you lose it! This should happen only when using then "Clean up document" option. This doesn't happen when you create a duplicate of the current gradient with the '+' button and I couldn't find a way of getting rid of that (unneeded) duplicates other than "Clean up document".
The global feel I get is that there is some weird hack acting on the interface and this gives me the sense that I'm using something that is not following my actions and doesn't let me gather completely what I need. There are too many side-effects on user actions that don't necessary follow the user's intention (at least not in my case).
In my opinion, these points should be fixed before completely retiring the old interface. The new one will not be complete until its integration with the Fill and Stroke dialog is full and the user interaction has reached at least the same level as the old one. Regards. Luca
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