On Fri, 2005-07-29 at 13:37 +0100, Alan Horkan wrote:
... but a certain category of user which I fall into is never going to be satisfied with behaviour substantially different from what they are familiar with.
Unfortunately, such users are not all accustomed to the same thing. Some might be familiar with Freehand, some with Xara, some with Illustrator. We simply can't make everyone happy.
(customizable keybindings/etc might help, especially if we had predefined "Freehand", "Illustrator", "Xara" -- but of course there is MUCH more to an interface than simply keyboard shortcuts)
(If the first space on the Commands bar showed the currently active/selected Tool like how Adobe Photoshop does this would make it easier to keep track of what was going on and for anyone who wanted to turn off the toolbox to make more space but it seem unlikely that users would actually want to do that in practice except on extremely cramped displays.)
That might be a good idea. It looks like you're suggesting a text label below, but do you think it would be a better idea to use the icon?
I guess I'd prefer something like this (would all be on the Command bar as one line:
Recangle X [ ] Y [ ] Height [ ] Width [ ]
[/] Rounded Corners X Radius [ ] Y Radius [ ]
Hmm, yes. I think I would also prefer "Rounded Corners" as a checkbox rather than a button.
Again it is the whole management of expectations, and it is important to try and head off criticism by warning users things are incomplete and planned to be worked on.
We've gotten complaints about a lot of things, but blank command toolbars has never been one of them as far as I know.
Complaints have been more along the lines of "it's not obvious how to get this" or "the dialog to do this is too bulky", both of which would be addressed by populating the corresponding toolbar.
Help, Modifying and Redistributing Inkscape. :( must resist urge to kill
Not my area - Peter, can you comment?
It is cruft, an unnecessary distraction. I would really like to see this bit of marketing propoganda removed entirely from the user interface.
It was added because a strict reading of the license requires it (yes, debatable, I know).
I think ultimately license information would be better as a link/button in the about dialog rather than a separate entry on the help menu, an approach which is not unheard-of in commercial applications.
But to do that, we've got to rewrite the about dialog first.
Not pretty. If Inkscape were all about Techincal graphics maybe but rulers add visual noise and complexity for new users, and other software I have encountered turn them off by default leaving a clearer cleaner more pleasant default look.
Which applications have rulers turned off by default? Maybe I'm just accustomed to turning them on immediately and forgetting, but in my entire graphic design career I don't remember ever seeing rulers turned off when I started an application that had them.
Also, I know if we turned them off I strongly suspect we'd start getting a flood of questions about how to create guides from users who were accustomed to Illustrator, Flash, etc...
Thankfully the rulers on the same level as the page and thankfully Inkscape has avoided the bevelling other software has on their rulers which may look pretty but makes it slightly more awkward to line things up with the rulers as quickly and as precisely.
Indeed!
I've complained before about the Document preferences dialog, I think we need to do a split between the "Page Setup" and the File Properties (aka metadata).
OK with me, if anyone makes a patch I won't object.
Likewise.
read the HIG, text should generally be left aligned (sometimes top left) it isn't in this dialog.
I like the current alignment better. Any other opinions?
I've rearrange a few dialogs to use left aligned text and it is substantially more readable. English and other European languages left align text, the only time we do otherwise is for decorative effect not readability. There are a few cases where it may look odd at first but sometimes it requires a few other minor layout adjustment to get things to look right.
Personally I prefer the current right-aligned appearance, whatever the HIG says.
However, the way it's currently implemented means that you cannot click on the label to activate a checkbox. That's very bad.
Both Freehand and Illustrator use Ctrl+Shift+G would be better if it were the one shown by defualt, we may want to use Ctrl+U for something else later. (I dug up a bunch of keybinding reference cards on Adobe/Macromedia more on that later.)
I'm not overly attached to Ctrl+U as the "default" for ungrouping. I wouldn't object to making it Ctrl+Shift+G, and I can see the argument for doing so.
I'm basically wondering if the time has come for a full menu for Select like Adobe Illustrator which would incidentally help slim down the Edit menu but Macromedia Freehand makes me wonder if there might be a better way.
Freehand is the one app I suspect many of us have not had much experience with... it might be particularly helpful for you or someone more familiar with it to document its interface for our reference. (Wiki?)
It would be helpful if you could start capturing some of the less controversial items in the RFE tracker, to make sure we don't forget them again.
-mental