John Smith wrote
Is there a reason for the differences between the UI for Grid and Guides ?
Is there a reason for not having such difference? Guides are not grids. They can also have different colors. :) Given your proposals, I suppose you don't use guides too often or at least not with all their possibilities. About me, I always use guides and never use grids so having guides on and grids off by default makes a lot of sense for me (that's my opinion: I expressed it just to let you know that there could be a reason for the difference, and it's in the way you use them).
John Smith wrote
a) Guides are visually "on" by default - but there are no actual guides. Menu "View->Guides" initially does nothing - since there is no guide to show/hide.
Well, also the current layer is on but there's nothing to show on it! :) How does having guides on hurts the user that doesn't use them?
John Smith wrote
b) Grids are visually "off" by default. Menu "View->Grid" creates and shows a grid if there is no grid.
I'd vote for not creating a grid, in this case. We could have that command grayed out until a grid is defined, or turn the command into opening the grid definition dialog if none is defined. A grid has a lot of parameters and needs to be defined before being shown: creating a random one (for the user, intended: Inkscape cannot know what the user needs) is not a good idea to me.
John Smith wrote
c) Guides are created/deleted via the Edit menu d) Grids are created/deleted via the Document Properties dialog.
Again, they are different tools. You don't create so many grids per document, you create some at the beginning and then show/hide them. Guides are continuously created and deleted and, more important, moved, rotated, snapped, ... (not duplicated, unfortunately, at least not yet). To me they are more like objects rather than a grid, and this is a point I hope will be improved soon in Inkscape: I'd like to be able to select a bunch of guides and move/rotate them altogether or duplicate them, or assign them to different layers... All things that have already been asked/proposed. So, my opinion is that a grid is something that you attach to the document and there it stays, guides are objects continually edited. I don't feel current locations are inadequate.
John Smith wrote
- Guides would be "off" by default (if not specified in the doc)
You hate guides, don't you? ;) Why not having grids on by default so as soon as you define one you'll see it? If you want to have guides off and as soon as you create the first one they are turned on, that's fine. I'm not going to notice any difference, so that's good. :) (though I wouldn't see the point of adding lines of code to achieve this).
John Smith wrote
- Toggling "View->Guides" would create guides (same as "Edit->Create
Guides Around the page") if there is no existing guide.
Horrible. There are already snapping options for page borders. Guides around the page are of very specific use and seldom created. As already pointed out by ~suv, should we real guide-users have to delete all those four guides every time? Or should we have newly created layers off by default and then when you turn them on you create some random object on it to see that it has been turned visible? I think the idea is basically wrong. This approach is good for dummy users that run Inkscape for the very first time: you show them what it's possible to do. The second time you use it, all this becomes useless and inconvenient. What about a demo version of Inkscape?
John Smith wrote
- Add a button : "Document Properties->Guides->Remove Guides"
I know people that don't like adding buttons on the GUI too much. :) But I'm in favor of this: deleting many guides is not easy and navigating through the menu isn't too. I know this option woudl be good for heavy-guide-users only, and I feel we are not so many so I can understand if it's dropped: GUI space is precious.
John Smith wrote
- Remove menu item : "Edit->Create Guides Around the page"
Why? How should one then create them when really needed?
John Smith wrote
- Remove menu item : "Edit->Delete All Guides"
I wouldn't. Menu items parallel to GUI operations are always useful. Not everybody like clicking on buttons to see what they do (or spend time reading tooltips) so the feature would become less discoverable.
Regards. Luca
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