Hi
I've collected all the questions and comments so far and here are the replys to them from our team. This post turned out to be quite a wall of text, but I hope it remains at least somewhat readable.
2 sections for the filter, why not. But having the possiibility to
take a basic filter as a base and change it to make a custom filter
would be great.
The idea was that the user could use these basic filters as a base to custom filter. Think as if these built-in filters are just premade custom filters that are fully customizable even further.
When you make a custom filter, allow to use it as a basic filter
inside (not as a base) a new filter (and allow to change the input
values).
That is why we applied the save and load function. User can load these saved/previously used filters and modify/add something new to them.
activate/deactivate basic filters inside custom filters too.
Do you mean these eye icons? They are also in custom filter editor.
Create handy tools like rotate, resize, mirror,...
This is why we need user feedback :) these kind of functions didnt pop into our minds.
How do I disconnect nodes in node editor? Just drag the arrowhead and drop
on free space?
Arrows are selectable like the effect icons. Just click the connection line and press delete.
You mention input reordering for nodes. Will this be in a separate
dialog, or directly somehow embedded in the node editor? In case of
dialog, how do I distinguish for example two different inputs of the
same type? (I guess those will be labeled with original input numbers
and keeping the node editor still visible?)
By this we ment switching the inputs for a selected effect. We found out that eg. composite gets two (2) input connections. If we swap the connections we get a different output from the effect. This is why we thought it should be easy to switch input order easily. This is shown in the last picture in custom filter workflow. Inputs are numbered and showed in connection view. This can also be seen in the same picture.
What about a possibility to add textual notes in the node editor
canvas or for used filters (i.e. tab "Notes" in the bottom)? I think
this can improve editing experience when creating complex filters
and/or editing after some time has passed.
That would be a good idea.
In your Added features section by "saving function of custom filters"
do you mean saving filters settings ?
We thought it would be great to save the whole filter including its settings. For example.... user creates a filter which is created from built-in vertical blur (the blur that can be accessed now from top panel: Filters -> Blurs -> Motion blur vertical) and a self-made custom filter. We could say the filter consists of these two parts. User can then save this as a one filter which could be then used later in other drawings by just loading it.
I assume the screenshots are mockups, but do you plan on also doing an
actual implementation? (At least of some of your ideas.) In either case,
have you thought about ways to overcome some of the technical hurdles?
In particular, you suggest to allow applying multiple filters to one
image. Do you have any thoughts on how to implement that in terms of SVG
representation? (If you also have ideas about how to reuse custom
filters in much the same way as filter primitives then I'd love to hear
it as well of course.)
Yes the screenshots are just mockups. We feel that we don't have enough programming experience to actually implement these changes. We thought about the technical difficulties while developing this idea. We're not claiming to be SVG experts, but understood by reading http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/ that it could be possible to include multiple filters in a single svg file (see http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/filters.html#AccessingBackgroundImage example). This should allow separating the filters by filter ids. After all... separating filter can be thought as applying them one after another, right? IDs could simply be shown as filter name in the UI. The problem is how to generate the connections from this svg file. By this I mean how the effects are distributed at the canvas. The current view is easier for this as they are shown as a waterfall type view. Reusing these custom filter could be done by simply saving this filter list as a single svg file. This file could then later on be loaded if needed. It should open up the same way it was saved (filter are separated and editable, parts can be deleted etc.)
As for the proposed interface, I'm not entirely sure I like the idea of
splitting it into a basic and complex interface. If the "complex"
interface is easy to use, why not make it the only interface? If it is
not easy to use, then that might be a problem. I do understand that you
don't always want open this huge window just to change a few things, but
I can also see different ways of solving that particular problem (for
example, instead of having two relatively unrelated dialogs you could
make a dialog that can "slide out").
By splitting the interface into two halves we thought it could be easier for new users to familiarize themselves with filters and of course easier using of these premade filters. At one point we had a mockup in which these two halves are together. They were linked as the loading is now in the basic editor. The active filter list is the same in both views so it could be merged in this approach. The problem in this vision was how to show filter parameters. And also this kind of UI would fill the screen, which is what we wanted to avoid.
What I DO like is showing sample images, making filter "presets" more
accessible and of course a nicer filter editor. I also very much like
that you have taken the effort to do this kind of work, I might sound a
little critical above, but that's only because there is now something to
be critical about :) (Which is way, way better than having nothing.)
Constructive criticism is also welcome. Feel free to ask for more
information if needed :)
And please correct me if I understood this SVG standard completely wrong.