So after playing a bit more with the upper-right colour/stroke widget, there are these UX issues with it:
1. It's not always visible, so the user is not used to seeing it unless they are already looking for it. 2. It only shows the current/last-used values when the tool is active, which forces the user to pick a tool first 3. It's so far removed from all the rest of the tool options that users are unlikely to associate it with the tool options (placing it alongside the tool options (maybe as the first thing in the tool options would solve this issue) 4. It lacks the opacity spin buttons that the lower left colour widget has.
I can see two options for UX improvement: 1. Move the colour widget to the right-most side of the tool options for improved visibility (has the disadvantage of scooting all the other tool options to the left) 2. Remove it entirely, and have the Lower Left widget replace it, since they both show the same thing unless something else is highlighted
#2 is my preference, though I could see arguments for #1 as well.
If #2, we should think about what it displays as "current style" which is effectively the last used style. The behaviour can be summarised as the following: a. If the user has nothing selected, it shows the current style a1. If the user draws something new while nothing is selected, the style is the current style (the one shown) b. If the user has an object selected, it shows the style of the selected object b1. If the user draws something new while an object is selected the style will match the selected object (for non-group objects) Drawing a new object in this way changes the current style, as you'd expect.
The effect is that objects drawn *always* match the colours of the lower left widget.
The difficulty here is how to handle creation of new objects when multiple objects or a group of objects is selected that have different strokes/fills/opacity.
In these cases, I think the lower left widget could stay the same as it currently is (with "different") instead of a numerical value. I think it would be an edge-case for the user to start drawing with multiple different object selected, or a group object selected, but since drawing deselects whatever is selected immediately, I think switching back to the current style would be both intuitive and the most useful thing to do in this circumstance.
#2 has the advantage that the user can select what they want to style the new object after, without having to rely on copy/paste style - this is quite useful and will save a lot of clicking around.
-C
On Thu, Jun 1, 2017 at 6:39 PM, C R <cajhne@...400...> wrote:
Heh, I've noticed the top-right thingy, but always thought it was just a duplicate of the fill/stroke indicators in the lower-left.
Even now, it seems a bit redundant... I mean there are three different places to set colour/stroke. I think Martin is correct... surely we could do a bit better than this. :)
I don't understand workflows that need the values locked to one particular value. I mean, if you're using the style so much that you need it to revert to a default every time you switch tools, why would using the last style trip you up?
Thanks everyone, for sharing your workflows and ideas. I'm sure collectively we can come up with something a bit better. -C
On Thu, Jun 1, 2017 at 5:47 PM, Martin Owens <doctormo@...400...> wrote:
Thanks Brynn,
In all the years I've used inkscape, this part of it has never really made sense to me. I cope with it though, by having pallet objects on the screen I can copy style from, and an bucket object I can set a style to for the next drawn object.
Clicking on the fill/stroke opening preferences isn't good UX, as I don't expect preference there.
The better thing would be to 'select' the default 'object' and enable the Fill and stroke dialog so I could 'set' all the styles directly. (see attached screenshot)
I can confirm also that when training teenagers to use inkscape, (15- 18yo, 2010-2016) you see a mixture of pre-setting and post-setting behaviours. pre-setting behaviours are met with confusion, but post- setting works very well.
Best Regards, Martin Owens
On Thu, 2017-06-01 at 13:12 +0200, Tavmjong Bah wrote:
On Thu, 2017-06-01 at 10:34 +0100, C R wrote:
Looks like we generally agree that the workflow should be changed to enable setting of the stroke visibly before drawing when no objects are selected.
To implement this: Fill and Stroke show current/last used style when no objects are selected rather than nothing. The user should then be able to change this current/last-used style.
I'm confused. The fill/stroke that will be used are shown at the right of the toolbar for all drawing tools except text. If no item is selected then clicking on the palette sets the fill and shift- clicking sets the stroke for the next drawn object (for tools using "last-used style"). Clicking on the fill/stroke widget at the right of the toolbar will open a dialog where you can choose between "last used style" and "this tools own style" as well as set "this tools own style".
Tav
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