I finally upgraded my Mandrake so I could compile the BORKEN branch. Overall, very good work, thanks!
I have only one suggestion: Can we please move the second toolbar with tool-specific buttons to the top of the window, making it a horizontal toolbar under the menu? Here are the advantages:
- With two vertical toolbars side by side, it's not quite clear that the second is auxiliary to the first. The second one looks like a continuation of the first. When the toolbars are orthogonal, it's more intuitive IMHO.
- With maximized window, two docked toolbars at left leave too much unused space beneath them.
- If we make the auxiliary toolbar horizontal, we may not limit it to buttons only. In fact, the entire contents of the "tool options" dialog can be moved to that horizontal bar too. Then everything in that secondary toolbar, including both buttons and text fields, will change in concert upon tool switching, but the toolbar itself won't disappear or reappear (although it may be empty for some tools). I think it will be both convenient and intuitive.
I did not invent this; what is described above is exactly the interface approach of Xara X. (Which is, by the way, despite its lack of SVG support, by far the most convenient and usable vector application I've ever seen. Way more convenient than Illustrator, and I'm not alone in that assessment. If we must imitate any one program, I'd choose Xara any day.)
--bb