On Fri, 21 Jan 2005, Derek P. Moore wrote:
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 23:23:09 -0600 From: Derek P. Moore <derekm@...656...> To: inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: [Inkscape-devel] inkscape_gtkmm: new dialog designs and other things
Howdy,
I thought I'd post about the current state of inkscape_gtkmm.
Here's a screenshot I just made showing off a few things (check it out before reading on): http://thestraycat.org/~derekm/inkscape/inkscape_gtkmm.png
Looks nice.
The Trace, Transform, and About dialogs in that screenshot are using libglademm and their XML specification in share/ui/glade/dialogs.glade to do most of the work.
If you'd like to help make/improve dialogs for the Gtkmm conversion effort, fetch:
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/inkscape/experimental/bryce/inkscape_g...
I have a few different prototypes for the Trace dialog. They are: http://thestraycat.org/~derekm/inkscape/Trace.png http://thestraycat.org/~derekm/inkscape/Trace2.png http://thestraycat.org/~derekm/inkscape/Trace3.png
Which one is best? I tend to think probably Trace3.png.
Sorry I'm not going to pick a favourite, unfortunately instead I'm going to nitpick but hopefully you will be able to make some use of the criticisms.
It is hard to tell as you have shown the dummy icon for images rather than an actual preview.
Keep in mind that monitors are in the ratio 3:4. If you want your design to look aesthetically pleasing it should be close to 3:4 (or if it is horizontal it should be 4:3). It is generally more difficult to design horizontal dialogs that people like the look of but it is all too easy to create a vertical dialog that simply wont fit on smaller displays, you only really have about 400x600 pixels to work with if you want to a perfectionist.
You have a label Preview and then beside it you have a button Generate. If you are going to have a button you should simply have a button labelled "Preview" which when hit will generate a new preview (under no circumstances should you be using a toggle button, if that is what you want then use a checkbox).
Take a look at other programs (even the GIMP 2.2) previews tend to be displayed first (on top) or on the left not at the bottom.
Personally I've never liked using a scale from 0 to 1 and as user I much prefer using percentages. It is worth considering what would makes most sense to users as it only ever requires a very minor code change.
In some cases it might be worth providing both a slider and a spinner (spinner, that number adjustment box with the up/down arrows that you have already used).
In Trace3 you repeat the word Multiscan which suggest you should have a header for Muliscan and then provide the three others as options.
The invert checkbox looks marooned. What is being inverted? That is where the Invert should be.
I'm not sure Apply is an appropriate choice of label. "Trace" might be the right choice in this case (or failing that OK, apply isn't something that should ever close a dialog).
Sincerely
Alan Horkan
Free SVG Clip Art http://OpenClipArt.org Inkscape, Draw Freely http://inkscape.org Abiword is Awesome http://abisource.com