Alan Horkan wrote:
I don't think it would be a problem if the menu item (suggest 'Document Metadata') was placed directly under 'Document Properties'. Objections?
I'd prefer to see Metadata take care of in a single Properties dialog (and have a menu item using the GTK_STOCK_PROPERTIES icon and label, because correct use of stock items gives lots of free localisation, leveraging all the work which has already been done translating the stock items and standard widgets).
A lot of what is currently described in Inkscape as Document Properties could go under "Page Setup", Preferences, or have specific menu items for fast access.
Back to metadata, I cannot think of users needing fast frequent access to the metadata dialog under more ordinary use working on one document at a time. There may more unusual cases of users with a collection of existing SVG files they want to tag the whole lot but if I recall correctly there are some Perl scripts for that kind of batch processing (written by Bryce?), and perhaps if we could provide an optional GTK frontend for those scripts? That way I think we could make users really happy, give them the kind of powerful batch processing and tagging functionality they really want and allow inkscape to have a metadata designed more for tagging the current document. (Hell if someone was really adventurous they might make an Inkscape extension out of it.)
- Alan H.
I would agree with this as a user and a barely literate coder (HTML/CSS/ActionScript and some very basic shell scripts are about as far as I go); when I am designing I am thinking entirely pictorially, and while I may need absolute accuracy, that is either for the purposes of print work or quite often for proportional alignment - the eye of a graphic designer is as fussy as the ear of a sound editor when it comes to being able to see misalignment down to the millimetre level or smaller. If I can do something quickly with a front-end, it doesnt interfere with the creative process.
Metadata to me is a curiousity, yet with the push towards SVG implementation, it may also become a necessity, particularly within the Free Software world. Using a dialog is essential for the most part of my work, as I cannot wear two hats when it comes to design and coding at the same time - I am in a dream-world when I design, thinking purely in pictures and throwing my vision on to the page, and I cannot interrupt the flow to work with verbal data. How I manage web design is a different matter, it is a case of cutting and pasting at a later stage, but again, visual thinking is prime - one reason why I still find GNU/Linux impossible for creating websites, even Quanta is difficult for me as it has not fully implemented dialogs and WYSIWYG layout (tables are a nightmare - the last time I used Quanta a table would be placed in the code but not visible on-screen).
So a front end would be preferable for me - but the idea of access to metadata is also irresistable... having looked briefly at the metadata editing within Inkscape, this gives me ideas of 'playing' and producing rather random results, without knowing any code.. just messing with what is already on the screen. Yes, we artists will do rather terrible things with your software! sometimes this desire to play produces fruitless results, sometimes it causes everything to crash... but in the process, sometimes it will create something I may not have been able to do otherwise through an entirely random process.
An analogy - I use Ceres3 and Mammut for sound design work, but I know nothing about FFT other than the visual editing that I can do in Ceres3 and some very basic understanding of acoustics/psychoacoustics; that which I need to know to produce the results that my ears will do intuitively given a nice dialog. Yet sometimes I will pull out the highly mathematical options available in these programs and type in completely random numbers. What comes out will occasionally be rubbish but often be quite curious - there are bell-like sounds I can make in Mammut by typing in a negative figure for a certain option (can't even remember what the function was!) which I cannot produce in any other program. It was just something I stumbled upon and can repeat by typing in similiar random numbers within a certain range. I have absolutely no idea of what I am doing technically, but I love the result.
This artistic curiousity I would apply to metadata as well... I may be designing a complex piece of art (something like the Peter Gabriel series on http://www.irixx.org/print.html) and simply play with it to produce random effects. Which in all likelyhood will be awful... but who knows? If it works once out of ten, that is enough to encourage me to keep playing...
In short... I'm suggesting a front-end would be essential for a visually-oriented designer's needs, but having access to metadata is a curiousity that I cannot resist playing with.
mC~