Ulf Erikson wrote:
There are several bug reports and feature requests that show how people find the current Save and Save As combination to be cumbersome to work with, but.. reading feature requests such as #1520237, #1085718, #1282332, #1377887, #1388131 and #1511930 it is clear that there are as many ideas as reporters on what the best solution is. and often is this idea very much influenced by what other applications the reporter has used before
What are the plans (or thoughts and ideas) about how Inkscape should work regarding saving and exporting files in the future? Is there an Inkscape GUI guru (group?) deciding on what the best strategy is? Is there a document describing such a common goal everyone can help work towards?
Well it would be great to have a GUI group to discuss further appearance and functionality of Inkscape ;) at the time all this GUI talk seems to be part of devel list...
There seems to be two works in progress in Svn; a new export dialog that also includes vector formats and a new save a copy dialog. My personal preference goes for extending an existing dialog, but wish to hear whether this is all part of a bigger plan.
From other apps I used, the Export command always worked as a multi format exporter. Not just to one specific format. Current export dialog is great for its detailed settings (but lacks PNG format settings) but it differs from common Save/Open dialogs in gnome. I think that if Inkscape want to follow HID like other gnome apps the export commnad should first show a standard save dialog specifying the file name, extension/format and path. After hitting OK it should display a dialog where user could specify details which are tightly binded to the selected exporting format (eg. export text as curves for PDF, resolution for png and bitmaps generaly, etc) along with specifying document area of export like in current PNG export dialog. Like GIMP does that.
About the question of different functionality of Save as and Export. Save as should only save with different name with option to select from SVG and compressed SVG. Cos Save as command is widely used as a command for working on a new copy, so user expects to have the "Saved as" file to be a further editable native format of his document. Export function is mainly taken as a function to "deliver my work to someone who will not edit it any more" like print houses, my collegue who needs just a bitmap copy of my document and so...