On Sat, 30 Jul 2005, [utf-8] Boštjan Špeti�^M wrote:
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2005 22:12:43 +0200 From: "[utf-8] Boštjan Špeti�^M" <igzebedze@...402...> Cc: Inkscape Devel List inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Re: Inkscape Harsh Criticisms
You know, while I like the idea of using SVG in bowth Help documents and About dialog, I do hate when I have to wait till it's rendered and shown.
On my 1,6 Centrino + 512 Mbyte RAM laptop the current About dialog renders ~6 secs. This is insane. I would vote for a GIMP-like About box with a smaller SVG inside, if anyone cares to listen :)
There is a strong possibility the gimp will move to the standard dialog too and then see about adding back the eye candy.
The current About screen is quite slow to load which somewhat detracts from its good looks.
interesting. i always found it quite amusing to use a aboring about screen as a demo space of an application... yes it's slow, but with a reason. i like it because it is different from any other app i've used, and thus has a spirit of it's own. there is really no need for so rarely used and in fact useless function as an about screen, to be seuperfast or a subject to any user interface laws. a dialogue with only one button (or even without), that you only use for curiosity, has no need for efficiency.
not that it's a big issue, but i will be sad if it goes away.
Thing is although you might think About Dialogs are pointless or almost useless they do serve a purpose.
The tell you what the program is about, "Inkscape is for Drawing Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)"*, they often provide a link to the website and contact information, they tell you the version (and sometimes specific build information that may be useful for bug reporting), and although not essential they show the developers names which is a source of pride.
Some programs add all kinds of animations and distractions to the About dialog which make it harder to get at the useful information (copy and paste it out) or make it impossible to point to the names of the developers because the actual information you are intereste in it is buried under a slow and tedious animation.
The standard about dialog makes sure to take care of all the functional requirements first, it may not be as pretty but it gets the job done.
I'm sure the inkscape artist can come up with a beatiful splash graphic even if they were given a slighly smaller canvas to work with. Using the standard dialog would however mean the information would be already taken care of so the graphic would have a lot less requirements. (If anyone were ever to try and port Inkscape to the Nokia 770/Maemo platform having used the standard widgets or at least the standard API will make their porting work a lot easier. Same probably goes for porting to any future versions of Gtk.)
Initially it might be easier and faster to use gdkpixpub/librsvg to render the SVG in the About. Perhaps another solution will be found, unless the standard GtkAbout dialog can be made scalable it might be nearly easier to use a prerendered PNG. Unfortunately all that defeats the one big strength of the current about dialog, it is a case of eating our own dogfood.
Sincerely
Alan Horkan http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/
* You might think a person running your program already knows what it is about but you'd be wrong. It also makes a whole lot of sense to actually use the About dialog to tell users what the program is actually about. If we are very lucky Inkscape will be the first and only SVG Editor many people ever want to use.