OK, that makes sense.
Another question: what should the behavior of the blend/composite/blur controls in the Fill and Stroke dialog be when a complex filter is applied? As mentioned earlier, having the controls simply change the first feBlend or feGaussianBlur in a filter with multiple such primitives might be confusing. On the other hand, it might be less confusing than having those controls disabled when a complex filter is applied.
-Nicholas
On 8/3/07, bulia byak <buliabyak@...400...> wrote:
On 8/3/07, Nicholas Bishop <nicholasbishop@...400...> wrote:
Well, I agree that what you suggest is much simpler. However, I could use a little clarification on #2 in your list, the preset filters. Most of the presets will have some settings; do these get set in a simple dialog when the effect's menuitem is clicked? If the user then wants to change the settings after adding some effects, do they just edit the filter using the current filter effects dialog (which would show all the effects as their component filter primitives, not as "Drop Shadow" or such), or should there be some special UI for this?
Well, simple setup dialogs are possible too, but what I had in mind is simpler. I really think that the instant-apply presets are better than any setup dialogs. (For one thing, instant-apply presets will be usable from command line.) To make this system more flexible, I propose several things:
- Make the presets smart, so that they take into account selection's
size and possibly other properties when setting filter parameters.
- When necessary, provide several presets differing by some parameter,
for example "Bevel small", "Bevel medium" and "Bevel large". This will cover the needs of 90% of users and will actually be easier for them than adjusting some parameter. If a wrong preset was applied, the user can undo or do "Remove last filter" and then apply another.
- For those filters where it makes sense (i.e. those where parameters
have geometric spatial meaning, such as blur radius), we must create on-canvas handle controls, similar to those now used for patterns and gradients.
It seems to me that taken together, these measures will make setup dialogs for presets largely unnecessary. What do you think?
-- bulia byak Inkscape. Draw Freely. http://www.inkscape.org