john cliff wrote:
On 10/21/07, bulia byak <buliabyak@...400...> wrote:
On 10/21/07, john cliff <john.cliff@...400...> wrote:
Gotta admit that this change confused the heck out of me when I was working with some gradients the other day. The fact that the global opacity slider changes behaviour when a stop is/isnt selected without any discernable indication that its done so is confusing as hell.
Oh come on - why aren't you saying the same about the color controls? They also reflect either object or gradient stop(s) depending on what is selected, and always did. I just changed the opacity to behave the same, for consistency.
But you havent, you've changed it to behave differently. Every where else the alpha for whats being edited, be it fil/stroke, is controlled by the fourth slider of the color bit, and the opacity of the whole object selected is controlled by the master bit. I think the disconnect here in thinking is what the selection is. As far as I would think about it, the selection is still the object with the gradient applied, I'd expect the master opacity to edit the opacity of that, like it does under every other situation.
I think it's matter of perspective. It really makes sense once you look at gradient stops as objects. You mention that the selection is still an object, but just with a gradient applied. Should you only be able to move an actual object (as opposed to conceptual) with arrows keys and therefore not be able to use the arrow keys to move nodes or gradient stops? You can almost look at gradient stops like nodes... should tabbing in the node tool not tab through nodes but instead tab objects? (since they're not really objects... just the node of an object)
You can't currently "select" the fill or stroke of an object with a tool, so performing opacity operations on an object level makes sense (as the object is what's selected). Otherwise how would it know if you're attempting to change the fill's opacity/alpha or that of the stroke? With gradient stops, you can select those "objects" and can therefore change the alpha/opacity of said object(s) with that spinbutton. Even in the gradient tool, if you want the opacity change to be performed on an object level, deselect any selected stops and use the spinbutton... in fact, that treats the object as you say it should... an object with a gradient applied (since you don't have a specific component/stop of said gradient selected).
Would you want it to change the label from O: to A: to reflect the difference in operation behavior? It seems unnecessary, but if people that use inkscape quite a bit (and have for years) have become confused... perhaps that's not a terrible idea? All I know is that my workflow will effectively be trashed if this is taken out, as it's really intuitive once you change how you look at selections.
-Josh