On Fri, 23 Jun 2006, Aaron Spike wrote:
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 11:07:28 -0500 From: Aaron Spike <aaron@...749...> To: Inkscape Devel List inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Filters UI
Joshua A. Andler wrote:
Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:
On 6/23/06, Hugo Rodrigues wrote:
It's probably early to start working on it, but where should the filters UI be placed? I suppose the most obvious choice would be having a new "Filter" entry on the "Object" menu, and on context menu. Another option would be to modify the "Fill and Stroke" dialog to incorporate a new filter tab, but I think this would be a bit out of context.
Why not "Effects"?
I would say not... because they're not the same thing. Our Effects menu contains a collection of scripts that create/manipulate items in ways not included in the SVG spec (nothing about it is non-compliant though, they're just Inkscape specific operations).
SVG Filters on the other hand are a part of the SVG Spec. Given this, to me it doesn't feel Kosher to mix the two (and especially to not have them labeled as Filters or SVG Filters).
I may be off, but it seems to me that the momentum of configurable menus is pointing to dissolving the Effects menu. The idea being that the functionality should be seamlessly integrated into the application.
Isn't this possible already? There will definately be extensions which will need to be grouped with simliar functionality rather than dumped in the effects menu just because they happened to be implemented in a certain way. (Also rather than having a menu item for everything it is worth noting Adobe provides a seperate palette for Actions (scripts) rather than putting them in a menu.)
For what it is worth I would as a user expect the SVG Filters to be included somewhere under effects. There aren't that many of them if I recall correctly, Jasc Webdraw showed all the SVG Filters in a single dialog with nice previews. Users should not _need_ to know how an Effect is implemented but ideally it should still be possible to somehow tell apart an SVG Filter for those who want to know and take full advantages of the functionality they offer.
I expect the Filters menu to eventually be used to show GIMP filters, which could be run on any selection, rasterising it and converting it to an embedded image, and then running the raster filter on it. Adobe has something along these lines which integrates photoshop filters in illustrator and it seems like a good way to integrate the artists work. I believe some work has been done already to get gimp plugins to work inside inkscape (I think that was how the gimp palette support was added if i recall correctly?).
Sincerely
Alan Horkan
Inkscape http://inkscape.org Abiword http://www.abisource.com Open Clip Art http://OpenClipArt.org
Alan's Diary http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/