Yeah, yeah... top posting is the devil.
With things such as toolbar buttons ('not rounded/reset' type stuff) and menu entries, I would be more than happy to make modifications along those lines if it is what the other developers want.
Your metadata "jargon" issue is kinda strange though, I was recently at a state bar seminar and I was amazed at how many people actually know what metadata is. I'm talking secretaries, legal assistants, office managers, and attorneys (none of which I would think would know what it was). It's a much more commonplace term these days than it was in 1998.
-Josh
-----Original Message----- From: inkscape-devel-admin@lists.sourceforge.net
[mailto:inkscape-devel-
admin@lists.sourceforge.net] On Behalf Of Alan Horkan Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 12:36 PM To: bulia byak Cc: Inkscape is a vector graphics editor Subject: [Inkscape-devel] Re: Inkscape Harsh Criticisms
On Thu, 28 Jul 2005, bulia byak wrote:
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2005 14:41:52 -0300 From: bulia byak <buliabyak@...400...> To: Alan Horkan <horkana@...44...> Cc: Inkscape is a vector graphics editor inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: Inkscape Harsh Criticisms [was Re: [Inkscape-devel]
Possible
bug in 0.42]On 7/28/05, Alan Horkan <horkana@...44...> wrote:
The edit menu has a massive twenty one, count 'em 21 items.
I have a feeling everyone is looking at me. Hey guys, I think I already explained it: menus (top menus and right-click menu) are NOT my domain. I'm just not interested in them because I don't use them. EVERYONE is welcome to come and rearrange them in any way
imaginable.
Hey, rearranging top menu items is as easy as rearranging single
lines
in interface.cpp. Where are your patches?
Fair point but that only goes so far, I really dont have the time to
work
on every project I see a problem with even if I would like to help.
The menus were but one example.
Inkscape Preferences dialog is a candidate for the User Interface
Hall
of
shame.
What is BY FAR most important to _me_ is that all options have meaningful descriptions and tooltips, and on copyediting them I
spend
a lot of my time. The rest (what? pretty icons? anyway, whatever you like) can be handled by anyone who's motivated to do it.
That is condescending and dismissive. There are serious structural problems in the layout. In one situation you can get three levels of Tabbed dialogs which is frankly insane but Alexandre has worked on this and hopefully his work
can
be put into practice.
Please do try to read through the Gnome Human Interface Guidelines
even
reading a little of it might help give a sense of some of the
underlying
concepts. A good book on user interface design would probably be more pleasant to read though and just as informative.
I am sorry to say I am dissapointed by Inkscape 0.42 which in some
ways
has taken steps backward in terms of usability
Such as? Please be specific.
How long have you got?
Keep in mind you did ask and I did warn you ...
I dont have time to list everything. I'm not an expert either so sometimes all I can do is vaguely point at a problem without
necessarily
being able to offer a solution.
If the Inkscape developers cannot step back and see most of the problems themselves things will only get worse again. Reread my
previous
mail and see if you can guess which misfeatures I was trying to point
out,
try and find a prominant feature that is more about debugging than about artwork and never should have been left visible in a release build.
My previous comments about getting rid of parenthesis from menu
item(s)
was ignored.
Vacuum Defs is still weird. I don't have all the answers but a way to "define styles" and treat defs similarly to predefined styles.
I know a lot of my suggestions will amount to looking at the
competition
and seeing what they do which is why I encourage others to do the
same.
I suppose I should look at XaraX too and try and get some insight into where Bulia is coming from but I think Adobe Illustrator and
Macromedia
Freehand are by far the most important to take a look at.
Other miscellanious quibbles, fairly raw and unfiltered:
need a submenu "View, Zoom" (short version, long versions will require a little more thought and reorganisation)
keybindings are not configurable, forces developers to try and
hardcode
defaults for everything cannot please everyone.
the old F1 ... keybindings are a bit weird, and I will bet the target audience of former Sodipodi and Corel Draw users is smaller than the Illustrator/Freehand audience. of course I'd love to have both but it doesn't make for a great default approach.
using the commands bar/options bar for both the tool defaults and
changing
the properties of the current object is weird (therefore harder to
learn)
and I still dont particularly like it.
the tools: node tool doesn't include any labels in the Commands bar
would
help if some of the items were labelled. same goes for the Zoom tool,
too
many similar icons are hard to disambiguate and text would help. text to the right of some of
retangle tool "Not rounded" inconsistent should be Reset, other tools labelled default should be renamed to Reset (use a verb not a noun).
freehand/draw bezier/text tools have nothing on the command bar.
colour
picker has only one item. seriously rough edges, sanding smoothing painting and polishing required.
Help, Modifying and Redistributing Inkscape. :( must resist urge to
kill
"Help, About memory" is not a useful user (artist not developer user) feature should at the very least be hidden from release builds (this
is
what I was referring to earlier).
Help About Inkscape. I'd prefer if this were simply Help, About like
most
Gnome programs. Stock items make less translation work. I strongly recommend implementing the standard GtkAbout dialog. The standard
dialog
provides version and contact information that can be easily cut and
paste
out of the dialog. The inkscape about dialog does not. use the
standard
dialog, make work then make it pretty later.
Rulers are ugly. Turn them off by default. Sure there is a small discoverability penalty but Inkscape is not for techincal drawing and
we
dont leave the grid on by default either.
The word metadata is jargon and we should not need to use it in the
user
interface. I've complained before about the Document preferences dialog, I think
we
need to do a split between the "Page Setup" and the File Properties
(aka
metadata). read the HIG, text should generally be left aligned (sometimes top
left)
it isn't in this dialog.
Group Ctrl+G, Ungroup Ctrl+U. Isn't Ctrl+U being used elsewhere for Unicode input? using Ctrl+Shift+G would be more consistent with the
HIG
anyway.
think as a new user: "How is a Path not an Object?" is suspect they aren't and a reorganisation will effectively merge most of this back
into
the Object menu. dont have a copy of Illustrator available to check against unfortunately.
Fill and Stroke, Swatches, Object Properties are all palettes/docks
and
should probably be under view rather than Object.
The Layer menu includes a lot of "Layer, something Layer" which is redundant.
having a top level select menu might help sort out some of the
imbalance
in the Edit menu but it may only serve to move the problems around.
The
tool "Edit, Find" in many ways similar to Select by ...
"Help, Keys and Mouse" doesn't make sense, needs a better label.
...
...
you did ask ...
dont say I didn't warn you ...
More later. It is difficult to turn my brain off and be hypercritical about everything. It can be quite tiring and a little depressing especially when I start feeling I'm being ignored. Being able to look back and say "I told you so" doesn't motivate me to continue making suggestions (which combined with exams is why I've been fairly quiet recently).
I hope others can learn to cast a critical eye on Inkscape because if
it
sucks to be the only one playing devils advocate, and it is not my
goal to
be the designated jerk but keep in mind I'm trying to give useful
feedback
but sometimes I have to tap into my "inner troll" to do it and it
makes me
really crankey. Arguing on the internet just makes everyone involved
a
loser and it is not my idea of fun. I dont have time (or expertise
but it
is effectively the same as time) to implement most/any of this even providing as much nitpickign as I do requires a fair amount of effort without so much as a footnote in the Thanks file for it.
If you want me to keep doing this you really have to keep asking. Inviting the Gnome usability team and the Open Usability group to take
a
go at reviewing Inkscape might be a good way to hear a different point
of
view from mine for a change.
Oh and if you could get Inkscape into Garnome[1] I'd be a lot more
likely
to build it occasionally and perhaps others would too.
Sincerely
Alan Horkan
[1] http://cipherfunk.org/garnome/
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