On 2/20/07, Aaron Spike <aaron@...749...> wrote:
I've been fighting this battle since the beginning. Users often report a desire for pixel alignment without having to work at higher zooms. The only reason I can ever remember for this being impossible is that it would violate the principle of least surprise.
So, on the one hand we have real users complaining that the program is broken, and on the other hand we have a theoretical argument about an imagined "newbie" user. In my opinion, reality should trump theory every time. Principles like "least surprise" help guide interface design when there is no data available to make informed decisions. Once real users start providing data, however, the theory must obviously take a back seat.
Even so, I think the theory of "least surprise" is being misapplied. A user who turns on the grid, even a newbie, obviously has some expectations about it. One of the biggest expectations is that objects will snap to the configured grid size. A user who sets a grid of 0.5 pixels expects objects to snap to half-pixel boundaries. It is surprising to have objects snap to 8-pixel boundaries when the grid is set to 0.5 pixels, regardless of which grid lines are visible. This isn't a theoretical argument; it is fact illustrated by the bug report and Daniel Pope's email. Even I was surprised when objects only snapped to visible grid lines, although I've gotten used to lots of zooming since then (ugh).
So, I vote that Inkscape listens to real users on this issue and removes the "WONTFIX" label from the bugreport.
-William Swanson
PS: Have any newbies _actually_ complained about objects snapping to non-visible grid lines? If some have, that would be an argument in favor of the status quo or at least a setting.