On 11-Mar-2013 12:44, Josh Andler wrote:
On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 10:44 AM, mathog <mathog@...1176...> wrote:
I also found one example in the first 10 pages of that search of an end user requesting something like this:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/170894
However that bug report to my mind completely skipped over the observation that Inkscape has neither a PS or EPS open function. That is, the issue was that EPS was a write only format.
That bug report from a user explicitly made a request and you intentionally ignored part of it:
"Generally speaking, if the format used to save the current image handles less informations than the initial one, the export function is very useful..."
I ignored lots about that bug. The OP was clearly confused since he/she thought once a drawing had been saved in EPS it was necessary to close the drawing and reopen it. That is, he/she did not understand that everything was still in SVG within the program, no matter what the file name was at the top of the window.
You also ignored that another user added a +1 and explicitly spelled out the paradigm. Also, let's nullify part of your argument because I can open (import) EPS and PS files just fine here. You may have issues with that out of the box on Windows, so let's Google "inkscape windows eps"... hmmmm within the top 12 results I got for three results of different people asking how to import eps being asked by users. Three results for download sites all phrasing it as "import" for eps and the raster formats. Three results for the inkscape site which has no use of "import" or "eps" on that page. Summary: 6 results of which mention the import of the format explicitly without searching for it. 3 waste results (no mention of eps on page). And yes, 3 results that talk about opening eps. Either way HALF the number of results using "import".
Keyword hits are pretty worthless in this realm. People use "open", "import" and even "load' as synonyms, ditto for "save", "export", or "write". Pretty sure that the mental model most of these people are employing when they use import/export is analogous to import/export with regards to shipping commodities. Anyway, I had to read a bit in each thread to see which ones were using "export" in the manner proposed for the Inkscape interface change.
The point was that these folks are about as technically sophisticated a group of software end users as you are likely to encounter. Yet even they have not been asking for the proposed changes to "Save", "Save As..." and the addition of "Export".
Thank you for again reiterating that you know nothing about normal users. Apparently you only know the most advanced users on the planet.
You would be surprised at how many of them are not the cutting edge software techno types you would expect. Anyway, ignore my experience and consider Microsoft's. They have hundreds of millions of copies of their programs in circulation, and yet even their most sophisticated programs like Powerpoint, which has the exact same "data loss if not native file format" issue as Inkscape, use just "Save" and "Save as..." for each slide. (OK, within a slide there is also a "Save as picture..." for when some objects are selected.)
Never mind whether or not you agree with that choice, just consider that 80% (or whatever the actual number is this month) of all computer users think that style of "Save"/"Save as..." is the way computers are supposed to work.
Actually, the real goal is to NEVER have to warn users. That is bad design by definition. There were a number of discussions about this in the past and warnings mostly started showing up after a majority of most of our experienced software developers moved on. Note: By experienced I mean people who actually write user-facing software for a living. The key is, if you don't allow users to step on their own toes, no warnings are needed.
Would that it was that clear cut! There are always going to be trade offs between safety and utility. (Not just in software, pretty much everywhere.) If the program can keep the user safe without impeding productivity then yes, warnings should be avoided. But that is a huge "if", and the proposed Save, "Save as", Export changes do negatively affect productivity. If a user saves in a format other than Inkscape SVG they should be warned when something is actually lost, but not when it is just hypothetically possible that under some conditions that format might result in data loss. If a user chooses to work in some other format that is no reason that they should lose the ability to use Save (especially with ^S) and "Save as" just because somebody, somewhere, might screw up and lose some data.
Also, if you are all so hot to save the end user's data, why are you not jumping on the autobackup bandwagon, rather than riding off into the sunset on "Export" (to mangle a metaphor)? Making copies of input files when they are opened is the only sure way I know of to keep users from erasing their data while using a program. Otherwise they may delete something in a drawing they should have kept, and then save over the input file, losing that "something" forever. Neither "export" nor "save as..." can protect them from that common scenario.
Regards,
David Mathog mathog@...1176... Manager, Sequence Analysis Facility, Biology Division, Caltech