On Fri, 10 Dec 2004, bulia byak wrote:
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 18:41:59 -0500 From: bulia byak <buliabyak@...400...> To: Alan Horkan <horkana@...44...> Cc: Inkscape is a vector graphics editor inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Inkscape on LWN
For the most part, this writer found the interface to be straightforward and intuitive. The "Vacuum Defs" item under the File menu was a bit of a puzzler at first, though it was finally determined that it was for removing unused information from the defs tags in a document. We presume this is a good thing.
*cough* told-you-so *cough*
It is unusual to have a menu item that to the average use has no noticable effect
Why, there is at least the effect of saying in the statusbar either "No unused items in <defs>" or "5 unused items deleted in <defs>", when you invoke it.
The statusbar is only for non-essential information and because it can be hidden you cannot assume the statusbar will be showing and rely on it as the only form of user visible feedback.
I'm still unclear as to why someone would want to manually invoke this feature every so often rather than have it on (or off) all the time, or have it tied to save/export (so unused objects would not get written and files would be smaller). Reading the rest of the thread and noting the comments made by Mentalguy I want to make it clear that I meant to think of this as an option at save time, not that it would be done automatically without warning.
Perhaps the author of the article can tell us why he thought the feature was unusual or confusing enough to be worth mentioning.
I said I thought it was a bad idea as soon as I saw and now an independant reviewer is saying it too, so I hope you will reconsider how this is implemented which should be easier than trying to fix me and other users who don't think it makes sense.
Another issue I am having is with the how the tool options palette works at the moment. First let me say that it is a great way to provide easy to find context information for each tool and it does that job rather well. My problem is with trying to use it the 'tool options' to set the properties of the current object. From seeing how similar tool options palettes in other programs work and because I associate those options firmly with the tool, it is very confusing to try and use it to change the current object. The mental model doesn't make sense to me. Other applictions would/do leave open (their equivalent of) the Fill and Stroke dialog and it would be more obvious where to go to change the properties of the currently selected object(s) but if Inkscape were to have a permanently open palette for that kind of formatting it would probably need to be simpler and more compact than the current version. That said it was an understandable change to make and worth trying out. Certainly when I was getting started I recall creating objects and then afterwards changing the tool settings and wondering why the still current object did not change with them. I hope I have described adquately what I mean here, but if I haven't I hope users who are familiar with how other software that uses a tool options palette will help elaborate and help describe quite how unusual the overloaded tool options palette in Inkscape feels.
I know I'm not a usability expert but (I know what I like and) I would strongly encourage you to try asking some one who is, the gnome usability mailing list mailto:usability@...45... is a good place to ask as it includes some people who work on usability at Sun Microsystmes and other real experts.
I have some project and assignment to do and may have part time employment over christmas but if I can help by producing mockup in glade or by gathering screenshots and descriptions of how other applictions work I hope I can help out (if there are any specifics people want please let me know).
- Alan H. http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/