On Fri, 29 Jul 2005, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 16:48:12 +0400 From: Alexandre Prokoudine <alexandre.prokoudine@...400...> To: Inkscape is a vector graphics editor inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Re: Inkscape Harsh Criticisms
On 7/29/05, Alan Horkan <horkana@...44...> wrote:
This particularly hit a nerve because the GIMP harasses users with inane questions the first time you run it, including displaying the License. There are better places for evanglism than this.
Those "insane" questions include display resolution, right? :)
The insanity is asking fist time users questions at a time when they are worst equipped to answer them. If any of these things need to be configurable they need to be configurable from the preferences. I can understand historically how the GIMP needed to do all this for itself but installers at startup is an idea that should have died off with Gnome 1.4. Ubuntu fixed (as in neutered) the first time installer so I try not to complain about it anymore.
Rulers are ugly. Turn them off by default.
Can you share your definition of "ugly" please?
Not pretty. If Inkscape were all about Techincal graphics maybe but rulers add visual noise and complexity for new users, and other software I have encountered turn them off by default leaving a clearer cleaner more pleasant default look. Off course uses can turn them on as needed, just as they turn the grid on as needed. Frankly I just think it looks better, keeps things simpler and is worth the small discoverability penalty.
Well, again -- how else do you add guidelines to a sketch without dragging them from a ruler? The very first thing I do when I use someone's copy of Photoshop/Illy is Ctrl+R to enable rulers. No rulers
- no guidelines. No guidelines - no work. This is simple :)
I'm sure we will get lots of opinions on which people prefer and whatever is decided will be pretty subjective either way. I do wish I had more to backup my reasoning on this but I really don't think most users need Rulers and Guides enough when they are first getting started to have them on by default. I suppose I should submit a patch and see how much people like you complain about having to turn it on, everyone else will probably barely notice.
I've rearrange a few dialogs to use left aligned text and it is substantially more readable. English and other European languages left align text, the only time we do otherwise is for decorative effect not readability. There are a few cases where it may look odd at first but sometimes it requires a few other minor layout adjustment to get things to look right.
A mockup to look at has an URL, right? :)
If you want an example I could point you to Gimp 2.2 versus Gimp 2.0 where various dialogs have been changed, particularly Script Fu. Could probably come up with more example if I had time, it really does work though.
- Alan