On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 10:44 AM, mathog <mathog@...1176...> wrote:
I also found one example in the first 10 pages of that search of an end user requesting something like this:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/170894
However that bug report to my mind completely skipped over the observation that Inkscape has neither a PS or EPS open function. That is, the issue was that EPS was a write only format.
That bug report from a user explicitly made a request and you intentionally ignored part of it:
"Generally speaking, if the format used to save the current image handles less informations than the initial one, the export function is very useful..."
You also ignored that another user added a +1 and explicitly spelled out the paradigm. Also, let's nullify part of your argument because I can open (import) EPS and PS files just fine here. You may have issues with that out of the box on Windows, so let's Google "inkscape windows eps"... hmmmm within the top 12 results I got for three results of different people asking how to import eps being asked by users. Three results for download sites all phrasing it as "import" for eps and the raster formats. Three results for the inkscape site which has no use of "import" or "eps" on that page. Summary: 6 results of which mention the import of the format explicitly without searching for it. 3 waste results (no mention of eps on page). And yes, 3 results that talk about opening eps. Either way HALF the number of results using "import".
And there were lots of developer discussions. No din of end users asking for export though.
A majority of our users never make contact with us or use our mailing lists. Interesting that 3/6 of the results mentioning inkscape and the ability to import eps were questions from users.
The point was that these folks are about as technically sophisticated a group of software end users as you are likely to encounter. Yet even they have not been asking for the proposed changes to "Save", "Save As..." and the addition of "Export".
Thank you for again reiterating that you know nothing about normal users. Apparently you only know the most advanced users on the planet.
That tells us that the current warning message is poor (uninformative) and/or the function that generates it is primitive. I have not looked at the code, but I suspect the latter.
Actually, the real goal is to NEVER have to warn users. That is bad design by definition. There were a number of discussions about this in the past and warnings mostly started showing up after a majority of most of our experienced software developers moved on. Note: By experienced I mean people who actually write user-facing software for a living. The key is, if you don't allow users to step on their own toes, no warnings are needed.
Cheers, Josh