Sorry, sent this directly to brynn by mistake. Forwarding to the list, read below. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "C R" <cajhne@...400...> Date: 6 Jun 2017 1:15 p.m. Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Fwd: Re: last used style #2 To: "brynn" <brynn@...3133...> Cc:
The workflow is draw first, style second. (Personally I like thatroutine much better than choosing the style first. So when you're making changes, please make it optional, so that those who prefer the "old" way, can continue without altering their personal routines.)
The new way will not affect the old way of doing it if you like that better. The idea is that the user should be able, at any point to select a fill and stroke, and have the next thing drawn be that colour. This will not change if you want to select a different colour after you draw - newly drawn/selected items will still be filled with the colours chosen by the user for stroke and fill after they are drawn.selected in the same manner as it does now.
The changes add the ability to use the Lower-Left stroke and fill widget as a master widget for colour, so you don't have to set the fill/stroke colour in the tool dialog (upper-left) - which most users seem to miss anyway.
One colour widget to rule them all, one to find them, one to bring them all, and in the Inkscape bind them. -C
So draw a rectangle. Yikes, nothing's there. I can see the dottedlines and arrows (i.e. bounding box and selection handles), but my
rectangle
isn't there.
Yes, this is why it's nice to set the draw colour/fill before the rectangle is drawn.
Why isn't it there? Because the last time you drew a rectangle,eventually you made it completely transparent. Now, every rectangle you draw will be transparent, until you change it. Oh, you changed it to
blue?
Now every rectangle will be blue, until you change one.
If the user has chosen to draw blue rectangles, reverting to some other default colour doesn't make a lot of sense. In most drawing programs, the "current colour" (the one shown in the colour widget) is what the drawn shape will be.
I draw a line - I make it red. I draw another line... but it's reverted back to the default line colour... I'm wanting to draw red lines, that's why I went through the trouble of changing the colour. I have to change it every single time = big big waste of time. To get around this, as others have noted, the workflow is draw a bunch of lines, select them all, then paste style. Yea... it's not great. It's what people are complaining about.
This is why it's simpler to have one widget to control colour. Currently the user has to look all over to see where to change the default colour, and are baffled when the colour changes back to the default colour when they draw a new shape.
As I said before, it's easily the most asked question, both in
forums
and LP Answers. And in my opinion, well, a ridiculous feature.
Simplifying the interface into a single colour widget will help, also if the user changes things outside this colour widget, new objects should not retain the transparency settings. - This more than anything causes confusion.
A distinction needs to be made between object transparency and fill alpha colour.
Object transparency, controlled by the slider in the stroke/fill dialog should not affect the current colour (and thus not the affect the colour/transparency of newly drawn items). - This, more often than not is what causes completely invisible objects, and it's a pain for the user to try and figure out which settings are causing the object to be transparent.
It's a difficult problem, but with your help, I'm sure we can come up with a solution that works better for everyone.
Most newbies pick up Inkscape, and they're happily clicking away, not thinking about anything, but marvelling over the awesome program. An hour later,
or
a day, or a week, and they don't remember that they were playing with
either
the alpha channel or Opacity slider. And also in my opinion, it's not intuitive that whatever change I make is permanent for the tool.
Yes exactly. This is part of what I'm working on remedying. We are on the same page here.
What's the solution? Explain to everyone how to change the stylesettings for all their tools.
This implies there is some means of forcing people to read tutorials. The "happily clicking away" thing is what needs to continue. The tool configuration landmines are what need to be replaced - an easy way to do that is to re-think how transparency and colour are applied, and provide a more intuitive and simpler interface that doesn't have vanishing bits. I believe we collectively can do this without adding a bottleneck to anyones workflow, and removing the substantial ones that we all have just gotten used to living with because that's how it's always been. :)
Anyway, I'm rather shocked that the mailing list crowd doesn'tunderstand what the problem is. I guess it underscores once again how far removed many developers are, from the user community.
Many people in this thread use Inkscape professionally, myself included (every working day, for a professional portfolio you wouldn't even believe was made in FLOSS). So let's not go the us vs. them route. There is no "them", only us. Let's try and find a solution that works for everyone.
Would it be such a hard thing to do, to make the default doc have
all
the tools set for "own style"?
I think for some tools this makes sense, but only if "own style" is replaced by "last used" style for that tool.
If I am adding text to a doc, I don't want to have to change the colour from some default value every time I add more text. If I'm drawing shapes, I expect that Inkscape will preserve the colour I've chosen, not change it back to some default value until I tell it to change the colour. If I'm drawing lines, I'd like the same as for shapes, though often the fill gets in the way. It's not that big a deal to change the fill to transparent, but maybe a good solution is to change the fill to none by default, then add fill colour if the line becomes a closed shape.
This is not a simple problem, and understanding all the implications is half the battle. Let's continue to work on it together.
-C
Thanks again, brynn
-----Original Message----- From: C R Sent: Sunday, June 04, 2017 2:12 PM To: brynn Cc: Inkscape-Devel ; J. F. Lemaire ; Martin Owens ; Olof Bjarnason Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Fwd: Re: last used style #2
Hi brynn. I think maybe we were confused about what you wanted. Sorry we guessed wrong. On the plus side, it opened up discussion of the tools, and how styles are used/reused, and it seems no one likes how it currently is very much - Which is why I'm making mockups of how it could work. I'll try and do a video showing the steps for each option.
It's taking a lot of thought, and consideration of different workflows, because the tools and how they function differ, so coming up with a unified solution that makes everyone happy will take a bit of time.
Can you advise in particular the workflow you are using - I think we would benefit from an example or two. I'll try to get in touch with you on irc this week to discuss it so we properly address your problem.
Thanks for your patience! -C
On Sun, Jun 4, 2017 at 6:45 AM, brynn <brynn@...3133...> wrote:
Hi Everyone, Sorry to have made that post just before I logged off for a day
and
a half. Aside from being a little afraid of what the response might be, I honestly didn't expect much response!
Also honestly, I was totally lost with most of the discussion.
And
some of it, I can't even make a connection to what I asked. It's almost like my comment about holding onto something for 10 years, prompted everyone else to comment what they've been holding onto for years. But I don't think it ever came back around to my question.
Moving the tool style indicator, or the selected object indicator,or when Fill and Stroke is called up, or setting style before/after, etc., (if I followed it all)..... Yikes, I'm totally lost!
Changing whether we can set the style before or after drawing theobject won't solve the problem I'm having. Not unless you somehow make
it
impossible to draw first and choose style second. And then you'll have complaints from all the "old" users who have it in their workflow to draw first, style second.
I'll try to keep up with whatever mockups you come up with, andoffer comments.
But if I can just reiterate my original request (which doesn'trequire a ui change afaik). Please, can we make all the tools set for "This tool's own style" as the default? I don't mean take away "Last Used Style" as an option (well, I was joking when I mentioned it). I just mean, for the default document (which is what newbies use 99% of the time) can it start with everything set for "...Own Style"?
It would not require current users, who might be using "laststyle", to go through and change everything, because their prefs file will keep them using whatever they already use. This would ONLY affect newbies, and
make
them less confused (and those of us who answer support requests, less bothered!)
Not that I know much about programming. But what little Iunderstand about how Inkscape works, it seems like it wouldn't take much time to
make
this change. Wouldn't it be just changing one thing, for each tool, in the default doc? Or maybe it's a change in the original prefs file?
Since I didn't hear any objections - not to what I asked anyway, Iguess I will make the feature request.
Thanks again, brynn
PS - (Re-titled this, in case of comments on my original request.)
-----Original Message----- From: Martin Owens Sent: Friday, June 02, 2017 7:51 AM To: Olof Bjarnason ; C R Cc: J. F. Lemaire ; inkscape-devel Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Fwd: Re: last used style
On Fri, 2017-06-02 at 11:01 +0200, Olof Bjarnason wrote:
Just trying to make this happen, and it won't happen if you do not get buy in from some developer that has the time and energy to make this happen...
This kind of UX is right in my wheelhouse. Please add me as principle developer to work on the design. To which we can then test functionally with users.
Best regards, Martin Owens
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