I feel it important to remind you, Bulia, that if I didn't think Inkscape were a great program, I wouldn't be wasting my time duking this out with you. Please remember I'm ultimately on your side.
bulia byak wrote:
On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 01:28:20 -0500, Kevin Wixson <kevin@...738...> wrote:
"More context sensitive" makes more sense, but please explain exactly what type of context is missing in Inkscape.
Well, from a cursory reading of this document I see that AI presents
I think the work I did to make that document deserves more than just a "cursory reading." How seriously am I supposed to take your comments about something you've only sorta, kinda, looked over briefly?
its capabilities as many different tools and its "context sensitivity" consists mainly of being smart when to use which tool. As such, this concept is hardly applicable to Inkscape which has just two tools (one for editing and one for drawing). It just does not need to be "sensitive" to switch its tools. Or in other words IT Inkscape sensitive because in the edit tool "knows" to do different things when clicked in different places with different modifiers. We just don't call this "tools".
No, it's precisely the kind of productivity enhancements Inkscape has over AI generally, which in the case of the pen tool the reverse is actually true. In AI you can perform a dozen functions in 9 different modes using nothing but a mouse button and two keys in combination and never leaving the canvas. You have been telling me of the importance of Inkscape's keyboard shortcuts as a key feature of Inkscape, but at the same time you are marginalizing that same kind of strength being represented here in AI. If keyboard shortcuts are important in Inkscape, the productivity enhancements of AI that I've detailed are important too. They aren't just different, as I point out next. [Note: I am not unconvinced about the value of Inkscape's keyboard shortcuts.]
There aren't 9 different "tools," which you should know; the word "tools" is just an abstraction for capabilities. What were talking about is Inkscape and AI's overlapping capabilities. AI and Inkscape have, with respect to creating and editing vector paths, roughly the same purpose and capabilities. It is the UI of the capabilities that differs. With AI, all of the capabilities are accessed with two keys and a mouse, without ever leaving the canvas. In Inkscape, many more mouse clicks, key presses and trips around the UI are required in order to accomplish the same thing. This means more work and more time, which means less convenient.
Again, I know of exactly three fundamental limitations of our node tool:
it can't drag segments, only nodes
it can't add nodes in arbitrary place on path
it can't edit nodes of two objects at once.
Plus...
- it can't do all drawing and editing of a path with the mouse and two keys without leaving the canvas. {If this isn't a significant feature, then neither is Inkscape's use of shortcuts or Inkscape's enhanced shape editing.}
- it can't continue drawing a path once it's been stopped. You can extend a path in Inkscape, with copying the nodes or whatnot, but that is NOT the same as being able to continue to draw the path with drawing tools.
These are the things that matter, things you need to tell AI users in big letters. Everyrhing else is either:
easy to fix (like the two small improvements I added recently)
actually better in Inkscape than in AI, if you think of it
purely cosmetic or terminological (like your "context sensitivity").
I don't think your assertion that the versatility of path authoring and editing in AI is "purely cosmetic" is any more fair or factually accurate than woud be saying that the use of keyboard shortcuts in Inkscape is purely cosmetic. For people who work in a production environment, where they're doing a lot of complex illustration, it is VERY important that they have the optimized workflow like you get in AI for path authoring and editing. "Context sensitivity" is a term that has real meaning, by the way. Don't marginalize it, because if you factor context into your UI, you have to come up with a lot fewer keybindings and individual tool implementations, and you end up with an overall better user experience to show for it. {Because I know you'll bust my balls about it: better = less work, less time, easier comprehension and accessibility. :) }
If things are so easy to fix, then why don't you get busy fixing them instead of standin' here jawin' away with me? :) {I mean that in the most jovial way possible.} I would myself, but I'm not a programmer. I'm a writer, so I have to stick to those things I do best. As a writer, a documenter, I can't write about how things *will work* or what *will be*, I can only write about what *is* and how things *do work*. Once those changes are made, then this whole debate will be moot and we can document things as they are without there being any controversy.
-Kevin