Hi everyone,
With the new snap control bar, Inkscape is becoming quite plump above the waist. Combined with labels that are longer in many other languages than they are in english, this does not leave very much space to draw in the end. See this example in french on a 1280*800 display (i.e. not the smallest around) http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1047321/inkscape/fat_ui.png The width is about half-drawing/half-palette, and, more importantly, the height cannot even accommodate all the tools even in this fully maximized setting.
The snap control bar is not very wide but control bars do not seem to be dockable one next to each other. They apparently need to be on top of each other. Is that specific to my version of GTK or a known limitation?
Now my real questions: what do you think about removing some of the toolbar items and reducing the number of control bars to two, as before? Do we really need buttons for new document, save, print, etc. when all of them are readily available in the menu and have standard, well known keyboard shortcuts? Having the snap controls in the toolbar make sense because the expose functionality that is more difficult to get to otherwise. But for the rest...
My opinion would be:
item status why?
new remove present just a cm above, in the file menu; well known shortcut open remove idem save remove idem print remove idem + less frequently used import ? export ? undo remove present to reach in the edit menu; very well known shortcut redo remove idem copy remove idem cut remove idem paste remove idem
zoom . . align keep it is inkscape specific except maybe: layers ? there is the layers' dropdown already for easy access
global prefs remove if users really need to get to the global preferences often enough that it requires a button here, it's probably that there is a deeper problem. Plus this would reduce the confusion between the two because of their very similar icons (as was mentioned earlier on the list). doc. prefs keep
Removing that would make enough room to fit the snap bar next to the main control bar. If GTK can't do it dynamically, it would need to be hardcoded, for now.
These changes might seem to be at the detriment of beginners, but once again they target: - functions that are similar in most software, so for which the keyboard shortcuts are easier and more efficient to learn - functions that are easily available in the menu. Navigating to a menu is not that tedious especially when the menu is just a few pixels above the tool bar button. I looks like a bad habit carried over from some windows programs rather than like a real design decision on the part of the linux desktops. Plus, other apps (like the gimp) don't have buttons for such things and I haven't heard anyone complaining (about that part of the UI at least ;) )
I hope it is not too late to mention that. I think if change ever happens, it should be before 0.47, before people get exposed and used to a more cluttered UI.
Thanks in advance for your comments.
JiHO --- http://jo.irisson.free.fr/