Excellent! I totally forgot about technical drawing, which should be one of the major applications of "tiling."(I think this is what you had in mind when you mentioned symmetries? Because in the case of pattern design, you want a lot more than just one fused line)
So here's what I propose: - Independent mode: clones are separate objects. - Fuse mode: output is fused with the original.
Then there should be a command to convert the symmetry/tile group into paths (object to path?).
In fact, the reason I didn't make a tool out of it from the start is because of two things: - in the past some developers have said that one should avoid making too many new tools as it's starting to clutter the interface. - too many sub-options... (could still be moved to a separate dialogue though)
The first reason is actually the very reason I asked about the
toolbar interfaceright before, because if the clutter option
could be solved, then tile optionscould be a tool without cluttering anything.
I agree that tools with sub-tools could simply have a small arrow to pop up sub-tools for one to choose accordingly.
Anyway, I also agree that LPE stacking is awful, because the stacking isn't intuitive. Stacking symmetries is more intuitive though. That said, stacking should still be possible with the following sequence: - Adding a symmetry or tiling to an object automatically creates a group consisting of the object and its clones. You have to enter the group to edit the original, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing, it means if you are making patterns you can easily move the group around and also add extra objects to them.
- More symmetries or stacking can be added to this group
In any case, I'll think up a new interface proposal with a tool- based approach in mind.
----- Original Message ----- From: Krzysztof Kosiński <tweenk.pl@...400...> To: Valerie <valerie_vk@...36...> Cc: Inkscape-devel inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Sent: Thursday, February 2, 2012 2:00 AM Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Inkscape tiling interface redesign proposal
2012/2/1 Valerie <valerie_vk@...36...>:
Ah well, I have no idea if the wiki image upload issue will be fixed, so I just made everything into an image and uploaded it somewhere else:
http://postimage.org/image/7f9ms5kw3/
As you can see, central concepts include:
- Transformations separated into groups that people other
than tile mathematicians understand 2. And moved to a dedicated dialogue. Basically: - One-time filters -> floating boxes - Properties that may need future editing -> side-dialogues By the way, radial transformations to use polar coordinates.
I was thinking about the tiling thing for some time and I came to a conclusion that usability-wise the tiling dialog is a cruel joke (adjusting numbers by trial and error? seriously?). Manipulating the tiling should be done on the canvas using control points. We need an additional tool, Tiling, that would have 2 modes: 1. In the first mode, it would work like the selector tool: you could move, rotate, skew, etc. objects, but it would only translate the centers of the objects rotating or scaling them. This tool would allow one to adjust the spacings in the tiling. 2. In the second mode, dedicated canvas points would appear that would allow one to expand / shrink the tiling. Alternatively, these could be two separate tools grouped under one button in the tool selector. The controls bar would contain a dropdown for the symmetry type with icons that illustrate what they mean.
I'm not sure whether symmetries should be lumped together with tilings. A lot of the time people want to apply symmetry to a single path, and they want a single path as a result, not 2 paths that are mirror images. I think that either the LPE mechanism should be improved to fix this case, or the symmetry functionality should be added directly to the node tool.
- Top level interface to address most common use cases,
while more advanced options (clutter) are moved to an extra button that you can access. 4. Guides can be edited on canvas... 5. ...and locked or unlocked to objects, so you can create half a vase, stick a symmetry on it, then move the whole thing around as though it were one object. 6. Stacking symmetries or tilings as you would LPEs
I think that LPE stacking is an awful hack that papers over the fact that you can't use an LPE result as a parameter to another LPE. This entire area needs a big redesign, which I once described in more detail on the list as a "new XML representation for LPEs", but my attempt at implementing this got nowhere as I would need to introduce incompatibilities with existing SVG files.
Regards, Krzysztof