Aaron Spike wrote:
Valerie wrote:
On the issue of linking vs embedding images: can't we just have 2 commands?
- Embed an image
- Link an image
Certainly, but the problem is when the command is implicit in the action, such as Drag-and-Drop. Which should we choose?
With out thinking about users and workflows, I would like to see:
- some on canvas indication of whether an image is linked or embeded.
just something, perhaps a little icon. 2) a simple way of converting an image between the two states. I would like a context menu, but others might have better ideas. 3) a dialog listing all images, their properties and their linkedness or embededness. the dialog should also allow switching the location of the images.
I think this is indeed very important, and I would like to add that when dropping it might be useful to use an even more obvious indication of what is happening (using the same visual indication as in the icon).
Then we could also allow for a modifier that changes the behaviour while not having released the mouse (could be more convenient than changing it afterwards), obviously causing a change in the visual indication. And of course it should be mentioned in the status bar that it is possible to do this.
I don't think these things solve the problem of choosing suitable defaults, but they might make the problem even more apparent and supply another way of dealing with it.
To tackle the problem of defaults I think it is important to distinguish between pasting/dropping image content and an image file. When copy-pasting a selection from a bitmap editor for example we have little choice but to embed the image. However, when pasting/dropping a file from a file manager or something like that it could make sense to default to linking.
In summary: - Clear menu entries that distinguish between the two cases. - When dropping/pasting image content, embed it (no other choice). - When dropping/pasting a file, default to linking. - Provide a modifier to embed a file when dropping. - Provide very clear visual indications of what has happened, as well as what will happen.
BTW, I think the paste command might already be too overloaded to add another modifier, but perhaps it is possible to find something sensible that would be possible to use with both pasting and dropping.