On 2008-March-18 , at 16:15 , Terry Brown wrote:
Talking about "Save a copy"
On Tue, 18 Mar 2008 09:28:56 +0100 jiho <jo.irisson@...400...> wrote:
Well, assuming SVG is also available as export (which it probably should if it can give you the possibility, as with other formats, to export only a part of current drawing) you could just export your work regularly and the result would be the same. One could even
Anyone with a coding background can think of a dozen ways to save backups, including export and VCS as Florent Becker suggested. What I'm seeing in a few apps. is "Save a copy" becoming part of the standard File menu / Edit menu template that the naive user understands is there for them to easily create safety backups of their work.
imagine having things such as special expressions in the export dialog name which would transform into unique characters e.g. massive_project_%n.svg
This is cool, but given the target audience (everyone) what about having "Save a copy" or "Save a backup" or whatever just automatically offer massive_project_<n>.svg as a filename where <n> is one more than the highest numbered version found. Seems to me expecting people to understand % substitution is asking too much.
Yes that could be a good idea. My opinion is that most things should not be duplicated in the UI, and saving files in one of such things[1]. That's why I think there must be only _one_ way to save your file to PDF for example. Now if "save a copy" becomes "save a backup", that's another functionality, that may deserve its spot in the UI. Please add your thoughts to the blueprint.
I would argue however, that I think people can figure out the %n thing if it is explained --in a tooltip or so-- because that's not so complicated after all (and the UI could help f we really want to, with a button that says:"insert unique identifier" or something, in the file chooser dialog). Plus, basing this system on plain text special expression would be much more powerful: after all, if you have %n, you could have %a which generates a letter, %h%m%s which generate current time etc. I think that such power should not be sacrificed for the sole sake of "keeping things simple for the newbie", especially when said functionality is easily hidden from the eyes of said newbie (after all, no one is forced to use %n). That's something which, seemingly, drove a bit Inkscape UI design until now (but the people who actually designed it are probably more suited than me to comment on that ;) ). For example, many editing modes are accessible by key combinations (= the effect of Alt and Ctrl and such in each tool) which is probably not the most newbie friendly way of doing things (and plain big button on the toolbar would have been easier). However, since it is kind of hidden it does not scare the user away and, in the end, it shows that it pays off to learn the software. You get the impression of Inkscape being more and more powerful as you discover it (and you also get the impression of becoming smarter and smarter, which is nice) so it creates a certain dynamic and keeps you enjoying the software. I'll try the parallel once more even if I risk being called an advocate or something, but this is also what Apple gets right in its UI design (the good parts at least): keep things simple at first sight and pour enough power behind the scenes to keep the advanced user happy at the same time.
OK, I digressed waaaay too much. Bye
[1]Actually, I think nothing should be duplicated unless there's a very good reason for it. In Inkscape, apart from editing functions that are more efficiently reaches in different situations, there's not really a point in having 10 ways to do the same thing. But that's just me of course.
JiHO --- http://jo.irisson.free.fr/