Whoops image was not complete when I uploaded it - missing the "Apply to:" options for Discrete gradient. It should look like this:
-----Original Message----- From: Veronika Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2012 10:23 AM To: Inkscape-devel Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] New dynamics interface proposal
1) Liberate the Trace tab from Cloned Tiles.
From Josh: Can you explain how you think it would be appropriate for the Fill & Stroke dialog? I can't come up with any way that it makes sense.
At first I was thinking that the functionality would be similar to what is currently done with the Tiled Clones dialog. That is, the action would be a one time thing and the data would not be preserved (similar to how alignment is done in the Align and Distribute dialog). In this sense, it seemed logical to have it in the Fill and Stroke dialog beside each of the relevant properties (a button for example at the end of the property, similar to the button that appears in the "Remove Overlaps" section of the the Align and Distribute dialog). However, an additional step is required to create the gradient so the button would have to launch you into a gradient editing mode which is a bit weird. Also, after the user has put the effort in to defining a gradient, it is a shame to lose it.
So thinking a bit more about it, maybe the functionality belongs in the gradient tool. Here is an image showing how the gradient toolbar could change to support discrete gradients and possibly image tracing:
The discrete gradient seems to fit well here. I am not quite as comfortable with the image tracing. Would users be surprised to find it under the gradient tool? There are quite a few choices to make and this may be a bit too much to put in the toolbar. However, the image tracing is doing the same thing as the discrete gradient functionality - in the discrete gradient case the image just happens to be a gradient. So in that sense it does belong here and is a logical next step if the user can not get the result they desire from a gradient.
4) Extend support in gradient to non-linear interpolations.
From Josh: Would such a change be compatible with the SVG specification?
Good point. I don't want to introduce crazy hacks.
From Tav: Clearly Inkscape can simulate more complex interpolations by adding more stops.
Thank you for checking into the specification and great suggestion. Adding more stops is how the user would achieve this affect today but the process is tedious and to get it right they may have to go off and make some calculations. The nature of these calculations is probably beyond some users. It would be nice to have this done automatically. The number of intermediate stops would need to be limited to a reasonable number for performance (and could maybe be chosen by the user).
I forgot to add one more point to my original proposal:
7) Liberate the Randomize button from Cloned Tiles. Like tracing, it does not depend on row and column position. It already exists for the alignment option but it would be nice to see this on other options. Since this really is a one time thing, I think it belongs in the Fill & Stroke dialog. See the image below:
In the image above there is a button beside each of the properties (h, s, l, alpha, blur, opacity). Select a bunch of objects and click on the button. A dialog will prompt the user for the start and end values of the range and then apply a different random value to that property each of the selected objects.
Cheers, Veronika
-----Original Message----- From: Josh Andler Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2012 1:18 PM To: Veronika Cc: inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] New dynamics interface proposal
On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 11:47 AM, Veronika <vmi@...2827...> wrote:
My recommendation to mitigate concern is as follows:
- Liberate the Trace tab from Cloned Tiles. The behaviour is based on
x,y position, not row,column and can therefore be applied to any selection of objects. The functionality should probably be part of the Fill and Stroke dialog.
Can you explain how you think it would be appropriate for the Fill & Stroke dialog? I can't come up with any way that it makes sense.
- Extend support in gradient to non-linear interpolations. Currently
gradients are linear - amount of change at each "step" is the same everywhere between the two endpoints, like a constant velocity. In contrast, the changes could begin slowly and an increase towards the end, like constant acceleration (or inversely, start fast and decrease, like deceleration), or the acceleration could be variable and follow a curve such as a sine curve or exponential curve.
Would such a change be compatible with the SVG specification? I'm legitimately asking because I haven't read that part in years (and don't have the time to right now). One thing you need to be wary of is making arbitrary changes in Inkscape that aren't supported by the SVG spec. We have plenty of features that aren't in the SVG spec, however, we need to have proper fallbacks to ensure we are doing things in a compatible way for other renderers.
Cheers, Josh
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