On 7/28/05, Alan Horkan <horkana@...44...> wrote:
Hey, rearranging top menu items is as easy as rearranging single lines in interface.cpp. Where are your patches?
Fair point but that only goes so far, I really dont have the time to work on every project I see a problem with even if I would like to help.
This wasn't directed to you personally. Other people have expressed their issues with the menus, and I myself agree that the Edit menu has become unwieldy. Let's fix it!
a lot of my time. The rest (what? pretty icons? anyway, whatever you like) can be handled by anyone who's motivated to do it.
That is condescending and dismissive.
Sorry if it sounded like that. I just said the same as Bryce - everyone works on what interests him/her.
In the below responses to your comments, note that I'm not speaking on behalf of all Inkscape developers. I only express my opinion.
My previous comments about getting rid of parenthesis from menu item(s) was ignored.
I see no problem in that whatsoever. It's not new in 0.42 anyway.
Vacuum Defs is still weird. I don't have all the answers but a way to "define styles" and treat defs similarly to predefined styles.
This was already discussed. You didn't convince me and, as far as I remember, others. It's not new in 0.42.
need a submenu "View, Zoom" (short version, long versions will require a little more thought and reorganisation)
May be a good idea, but personally I'm ambivalent. You gain a shorter menu but you lose an extra click. Don't know which wins.
keybindings are not configurable, forces developers to try and hardcode defaults for everything cannot please everyone.
In what way is this a regression in 0.42? Everyone agrees this should be done. It's just not done yet.
the old F1 ... keybindings are a bit weird, and I will bet the target audience of former Sodipodi and Corel Draw users is smaller than the Illustrator/Freehand audience. of course I'd love to have both but it doesn't make for a great default approach.
Already discussed, I'm not convinced, not a regression in 0.42.
using the commands bar/options bar for both the tool defaults and changing the properties of the current object is weird (therefore harder to learn) and I still dont particularly like it.
Already discussed, I'm VERY MUCH not convinced (I think it's one of the best things in our UI), not a regression in 0.42.
the tools: node tool doesn't include any labels in the Commands bar would help if some of the items were labelled. same goes for the Zoom tool, too many similar icons are hard to disambiguate and text would help.
May be a good idea. Can you make a specific proposal?
retangle tool "Not rounded" inconsistent should be Reset, other tools labelled default should be renamed to Reset (use a verb not a noun).
Disagree, I think this was already discussed. The labels say what this button does SPECIFICALLY. "Reset" tells me nothing and will likely scare me away.
freehand/draw bezier/text tools have nothing on the command bar. colour picker has only one item.
Sure, we're working on it. Lots of ideas on what to put there. Just wasn't ready in time for 0.42.
seriously rough edges, sanding smoothing painting and polishing required.
Such as?
Help, Modifying and Redistributing Inkscape. :( must resist urge to kill
Not my area - Peter, can you comment?
"Help, About memory" is not a useful user (artist not developer user) feature should at the very least be hidden from release builds (this is what I was referring to earlier).
Maybe we'll hide it for 1.0 when we patch all leaks. For now it's useful to those who can use it, and pretty nonobtrusive for others.
Help About Inkscape. I'd prefer if this were simply Help, About like most Gnome programs.
OK with me
Stock items make less translation work. I strongly recommend implementing the standard GtkAbout dialog. The standard dialog provides version and contact information that can be easily cut and paste out of the dialog. The inkscape about dialog does not. use the standard dialog, make work then make it pretty later.
Some people were planning to do just that for 0.43.
Rulers are ugly. Turn them off by default.
???????
Can you share your definition of "ugly" please?
To me they're perfectly OK, not worse nor better than in any other vector app.
The word metadata is jargon and we should not need to use it in the user interface.
Nope, it's a well-defined term.
I've complained before about the Document preferences dialog, I think we need to do a split between the "Page Setup" and the File Properties (aka metadata).
OK with me, if anyone makes a patch I won't object.
read the HIG, text should generally be left aligned (sometimes top left) it isn't in this dialog.
I like the current alignment better. Any other opinions?
Group Ctrl+G, Ungroup Ctrl+U. Isn't Ctrl+U being used elsewhere for Unicode input?
Yes, so what? Lots of keys have different meanings in text tool when editing text. That's normal.
using Ctrl+Shift+G would be more consistent with the HIG anyway.
Why can't you simply try it? or look up in the reference? We DO have Ctrl+Shift+G for ungrouping and always did.
think as a new user: "How is a Path not an Object?"
Makes sense, please propose a specific reorganization.
Fill and Stroke, Swatches, Object Properties are all palettes/docks and should probably be under view rather than Object.
No. We had them all under "Dialogs" before and everyone loathed this. It does not matter what they "are"; what matters is what they DO and what they apply to. From that viewpoint, they would make much more sense in a Selection menu if we had it, not in Object.
The Layer menu includes a lot of "Layer, something Layer" which is redundant.
Agree, redundancy may be reduced here
having a top level select menu might help sort out some of the imbalance in the Edit menu but it may only serve to move the problems around. The tool "Edit, Find" in many ways similar to Select by ...
Comments make sense, please propose a specific reorganization.
"Help, Keys and Mouse" doesn't make sense, needs a better label.
It explains what it is. What do you propose?
about everything. It can be quite tiring and a little depressing especially when I start feeling I'm being ignored.
Please don't feel that way. At least I always pay attention to what you say and try to give specific responses, even if I disagree with you. As you can see from above list, I agree with some of your proposals though not all.
And almost none of your complaints are new for 0.42, which surprises me because you started by claiming that we have deteriorated in usability in this release.
I hope others can learn to cast a critical eye on Inkscape because if it sucks to be the only one playing devils advocate
Well, you're far from the only one. We had a lot of discussion with Kevn Wixson for example, and this resulted in a lot of improvement in the Node tool, and as far as I remember most if not all of his criticisms were resolved satisfactorily. So if nobody supports some of your criticisms, well... maybe it's because people like Inkscape the way it is? :)
If you want me to keep doing this you really have to keep asking. Inviting the Gnome usability team and the Open Usability group to take a go at reviewing Inkscape might be a good way to hear a different point of view from mine for a change.
Sure, what do we do to make this happen?
Oh and if you could get Inkscape into Garnome[1] I'd be a lot more likely to build it occasionally and perhaps others would too.
Anyone knows what needs to be done for this?