common interface for graphics apps on the "free desktop"
One of the good things about Adobe's product line is that they "work together". Same tasks require the same interface. Shortcuts are consistent.
On the free desktop we have two major graphics applications, Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org) and GIMP (http://www.gimp.org). It will not be uncommon to have users needing both apps in their workflow. I hope you guys agree trying to have similar consistency helps to provide a sane user experience.
To be specific, there are areas where GIMP & Inkscape provide similar functionality in a slightly different way. For now I will ignore the path tool. An inconsistency that came up while I was working on something is the mouse wheel behavior. GIMP uses shift+scroll wheel to zoom, Inkscape Ctrl+mousewheel. GIMP uses Alt+mousewheel to pan horizontally, Inkscape uses Shift+mousewheel. I've filed this as http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1115612&gro...
Another area is the aspect ratio constraint and other transform modifiers.
Note that this isn't a user-transition problem. People like me will be using GIMP & Inkscape simultaneously. It's _not_ about forgetting what a user has been used to in the past. Having inconsistent behavior makes one stumble in both apps.
It would be cool if somebody found the motivation to write up some extension to the Gnome HIG, defining a standard behaviour for gfx apps (*hint* *hint* ;).
Sorry for cross posting, but I hope to initiate some discussion among both camps.
cheers
On Thu, 3 Feb 2005, Jakub Steiner wrote:
Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2005 20:57:45 +0100 From: Jakub Steiner <jimmac@...659...> To: inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Cc: gimp-developer@...135... Subject: [Inkscape-devel] common interface for graphics apps on the "free desktop"
One of the good things about Adobe's product line is that they "work together". Same tasks require the same interface. Shortcuts are consistent.
On the free desktop we have two major graphics applications, Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org) and GIMP (http://www.gimp.org). It will not be uncommon to have users needing both apps in their workflow. I hope you guys agree trying to have similar consistency helps to provide a sane user experience.
There is definately some room to improve consistancy that wont bother either project but as I'm sure you are aware Inkscape quite deliberately has a different user interface from the GIMP so hopefully we can stick to the bits everyone can agree on.
It is probably worth mentioning that Inkscape is likely to implement some form of dock to help manage the Palette windows. It is also likely in the long term that the toolbar widgets in Inkscape will become more flexible allowing a somewhat more flexible layout of the user interface.
To be specific, there are areas where GIMP & Inkscape provide similar functionality in a slightly different way. For now I will ignore the path tool.
An inconsistency that came up while I was working on something is the mouse wheel behavior. GIMP uses shift+scroll wheel to zoom, Inkscape Ctrl+mousewheel. GIMP uses Alt+mousewheel to pan horizontally, Inkscape uses Shift+mousewheel. I've filed this as http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1115612&gro...
According to the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines Inkscape is using the preferred behaviour (and although I would need to double check I am reasonably sure this behaviour is consistant with Apple and Microsoft guidelines).
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/input.html#mouse-buttons Ctrl-scrollwheel-up should zoom into the window or control under the mouse pointer, and Ctrl-scrollwheel-down should zoom out. Zooming in this way should not move keyboard focus to the window or control being zoomed.
It would be cool if somebody found the motivation to write up some extension to the Gnome HIG, defining a standard behaviour for gfx apps (*hint* *hint* ;).
I do agree that a section describing how best to design Palette Dialogs is needed as they need to be compact and are quite different from the standard transient dialogs described by the current guidelines.
Sorry for cross posting, but I hope to initiate some discussion among both camps.
Sincerely
Alan Horkan http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/
(Feel free to reply to one list or both but please don't CC me)
Hi,
Alan Horkan <horkana@...44...> writes:
There is definately some room to improve consistancy that wont bother either project but as I'm sure you are aware Inkscape quite deliberately has a different user interface from the GIMP so hopefully we can stick to the bits everyone can agree on.
It is probably worth mentioning that Inkscape is likely to implement some form of dock to help manage the Palette windows. It is also likely in the long term that the toolbar widgets in Inkscape will become more flexible allowing a somewhat more flexible layout of the user interface.
In the end the user interfaces will most likely converge even more. We have already reduced the amount of toplevel windows and popups and will continute to do that. As soon as we add tabbed images, we are already rather close to an MDI-alike user interface. I wouldn't object against pushing the changes even further. But it needs people who are willing and capable to work on such this.
To be specific, there are areas where GIMP & Inkscape provide similar functionality in a slightly different way. For now I will ignore the path tool.
It would beinteresting to have a comparison of the path tools in GIMP and Inkscape. There's certainly room for improvement and it would help users a lot if the two applications (and others) would behave somewhat similar.
We should also try to improve interoperability between the two apps. We already share a common format for paths, so we it should be possible to quickly exchange paths between the two apps. GIMP 2.2 supports DND for paths. Has Inkscape added support for this? What about the clipboard? We don't do copy-and-paste for paths yet, but we would definitely like to add that. Does Inkscape use the system clipboard for paths?
An inconsistency that came up while I was working on something is the mouse wheel behavior. GIMP uses shift+scroll wheel to zoom, Inkscape Ctrl+mousewheel. GIMP uses Alt+mousewheel to pan horizontally, Inkscape uses Shift+mousewheel. I've filed this as http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1115612&gro...
GIMP in CVS now uses Ctrl+scroll wheel for zooming. Shift is being used to pan horizontally now.
Sven
Alan Horkan wrote:
On Thu, 3 Feb 2005, Jakub Steiner wrote:
Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2005 20:57:45 +0100 From: Jakub Steiner <jimmac@...659...> To: inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Cc: gimp-developer@...135... Subject: [Inkscape-devel] common interface for graphics apps on the "free desktop"
One of the good things about Adobe's product line is that they "work together". Same tasks require the same interface. Shortcuts are consistent.
On the free desktop we have two major graphics applications, Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org) and GIMP (http://www.gimp.org). It will not be uncommon to have users needing both apps in their workflow. I hope you guys agree trying to have similar consistency helps to provide a sane user experience.
There is definately some room to improve consistancy that wont bother either project but as I'm sure you are aware Inkscape quite deliberately has a different user interface from the GIMP so hopefully we can stick to the bits everyone can agree on.
It is probably worth mentioning that Inkscape is likely to implement some form of dock to help manage the Palette windows. It is also likely in the long term that the toolbar widgets in Inkscape will become more flexible allowing a somewhat more flexible layout of the user interface.
As someone mentioned last time this was brought up, the DTP-tool Scribus should be added to the mix, since it is the InDesign equalent of a free DTP enviorment and it would be great if they got involved in this. Inkscape has already some relations with this project. I have started to screenshot the three apps to point out small stuff that would make them work better together, but I am unsure where to post them. Would the inkscape wiki do, or should it be put on more "neutral" ground :) , like freedesktop.org? - Andreas Nilsson
Andreas Nilsson wrote:
As someone mentioned last time this was brought up, the DTP-tool Scribus should be added to the mix, since it is the InDesign equalent of a free DTP enviorment and it would be great if they got involved in this. Inkscape has already some relations with this project. I have started to screenshot the three apps to point out small stuff that would make them work better together, but I am unsure where to post them. Would the inkscape wiki do, or should it be put on more "neutral" ground :) , like freedesktop.org?
- Andreas Nilsson
There is one major factor that would make merging Scribus with GIMP or Inkscape very difficult. GIMP and Inkscape are both based on Gtk+, and deeply, too. (the 'g' in Gtk is for GIMP) Scribus is a Qt app.
When I say 'deeply' I mean that not only are the visible GUI pieces based on Gtk, but also a great portion of the internal structure.
Bob
Bob Jamison wrote:
Andreas Nilsson wrote:
As someone mentioned last time this was brought up, the DTP-tool Scribus should be added to the mix, since it is the InDesign equalent of a free DTP enviorment and it would be great if they got involved in this. Inkscape has already some relations with this project. I have started to screenshot the three apps to point out small stuff that would make them work better together, but I am unsure where to post them. Would the inkscape wiki do, or should it be put on more "neutral" ground :) , like freedesktop.org?
- Andreas Nilsson
There is one major factor that would make merging Scribus with GIMP or Inkscape very difficult. GIMP and Inkscape are both based on Gtk+, and deeply, too. (the 'g' in Gtk is for GIMP) Scribus is a Qt app.
When I say 'deeply' I mean that not only are the visible GUI pieces based on Gtk, but also a great portion of the internal structure.
Well, I don't really see the use of different toolkits being a huge problem really. Sure, as Scribus is a qt-application, they probably want to stick to the kde-usability guidelines a bit more, but I belive some efforts to provide similar wording, behaviour of tools and other stuff could ease a users workflow. - Andreas Nilsson
On Sun, 06 Feb 2005 22:55:29 +0100, Andreas Nilsson <nisses.mail@...563...> wrote:
Well, I don't really see the use of different toolkits being a huge problem really. Sure, as Scribus is a qt-application, they probably want to stick to the kde-usability guidelines a bit more, but I belive some efforts to provide similar wording, behaviour of tools and other stuff could ease a users workflow.
Yes, and I started this by submitting a proposal on keyboard shortcuts. It's somewhere on their wiki (I can't find it now). Does anyone have an idea of how far they are in implementing it?
On Sun, 2005-02-06 at 18:03 -0400, bulia byak wrote:
On Sun, 06 Feb 2005 22:55:29 +0100, Andreas Nilsson <nisses.mail@...563...> wrote:
Well, I don't really see the use of different toolkits being a huge problem really. Sure, as Scribus is a qt-application, they probably want to stick to the kde-usability guidelines a bit more, but I belive some efforts to provide similar wording, behaviour of tools and other stuff could ease a users workflow.
Yes, and I started this by submitting a proposal on keyboard shortcuts. It's somewhere on their wiki (I can't find it now). Does anyone have an idea of how far they are in implementing it?
In the comments to the article about software integration at
http://software.newsforge.com/software/05/02/02/215259.shtml?tid=75&tid=...
Peter Linnell from Scribus mentions it:
"The next version of Scribus will have redesigned keyboard shortcuts which mostly follow guidelines carefully written out by an Inkscape developer."
Sound good to me.
David
On Sun, 6 Feb 2005, Andreas Nilsson wrote:
Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2005 22:55:29 +0100 From: Andreas Nilsson <nisses.mail@...563...> To: Inkscape Devel List inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] common interface for graphics apps on the "free desktop"
Bob Jamison wrote:
Andreas Nilsson wrote:
As someone mentioned last time this was brought up, the DTP-tool Scribus should be added to the mix, since it is the InDesign equalent of a free DTP enviorment and it would be great if they got involved in this. Inkscape has already some relations with this project. I have started to screenshot the three apps to point out small stuff that would make them work better together, but I am unsure where to post them. Would the inkscape wiki do, or should it be put on more "neutral" ground :) , like freedesktop.org?
- Andreas Nilsson
There is one major factor that would make merging Scribus with GIMP or Inkscape very difficult. GIMP and Inkscape are both based on Gtk+, and deeply, too. (the 'g' in Gtk is for GIMP) Scribus is a Qt app.
When I say 'deeply' I mean that not only are the visible GUI pieces based on Gtk, but also a great portion of the internal structure.
Well, I don't really see the use of different toolkits being a huge problem really.
As theming engines and desktop standards get better it should become more and more difficult for normal users to notice which toolkits the developers have used. (I'm optimistic but not optimistic enough to venture a guess as to when exactly this will happen)
Sure, as Scribus is a qt-application, they probably want to stick to the kde-usability guidelines a bit more,
In theory the usability guidelines shouldn't be massively different from the Gnome guidelines (which borrow from the Apple, Sun and even Microsoft guidelines). I'd be interested to learn more about any differences people may be aware of (and I guess I'll have to sit down and read the KDE guidelines in full).
The most obvious incompatability issue, namely button order should be moot with newer versions of GTK due to allow that to be configured automatically (another great reason to keep using stock widgets).
but I belive some efforts to provide similar wording, behaviour of tools and other stuff could ease a users workflow.
It is fantastic to see QT and GTK projects cooperating on stuff like this and I hope it encourages other projects to consider greater cooperation.
Sincerely
Alan Horkan http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/
Inkscape, Draw Freely http://inkscape.org Abiword is Awesome http://abisource.com
On Sun, 6 Feb 2005 18:03:49 -0400, bulia byak <buliabyak@...400...> wrote:
On Sun, 06 Feb 2005 22:55:29 +0100, Andreas Nilsson <nisses.mail@...563... > wrote:
Well, I don't really see the use of different toolkits being a huge problem really. Sure, as Scribus is a qt-application, they probably want to stick to the kde-usability guidelines a bit more, but I belive some efforts to provide similar wording, behaviour of tools and other stuff could ease a users workflow.
Yes, and I started this by submitting a proposal on keyboard shortcuts. It's somewhere on their wiki (I can't find it now). Does anyone have an idea of how far they are in implementing it?
Already done in CVS of 1.3. It is closed currently for public access, though.
As the only person in Scribus team who does deals with icons at the moment I'm very interested in cooperation with Inkscape and The GIMP teams.
What I'd like to work out is:
1. Standartized color palette for icons. 2. Standartized style of icons.
Because not all of Scribus's developers like HIG color palette (it's really lifeless for some purposes), extending it would be nice.
Like I said, in Scribus 1.3 it is possible to map a hotkey to any menu item and not only, so there is no "technological" kind of issue in unifying hotkeys schemes.
Alexandre
Alan Horkan wrote:
There is one major factor that would make merging Scribus with GIMP or Inkscape very difficult. GIMP and Inkscape are both based on Gtk+, and deeply, too. (the 'g' in Gtk is for GIMP) Scribus is a Qt app.
When I say 'deeply' I mean that not only are the visible GUI pieces based on Gtk, but also a great portion of the internal structure.
Well, I don't really see the use of different toolkits being a huge problem really.
As theming engines and desktop standards get better it should become more and more difficult for normal users to notice which toolkits the developers have used. (I'm optimistic but not optimistic enough to venture a guess as to when exactly this will happen)
Hopefully sooner rather than later, take a look at metatheme: http://metatheme.advel.cz
What I'd like to work out is:
- Standartized color palette for icons.
- Standartized style of icons.
Because not all of Scribus's developers like HIG color palette (it's really lifeless for some purposes), extending it would be nice.
Not all Gnome users do either :) I actually think the softwares should have a shared iconset, but this has been brought up before, and to me it seems that the freedesktop.org specifications for iconthemes should be implemented by Gnome and KDE. Then you should have a shared icon repository.
Like I said, in Scribus 1.3 it is possible to map a hotkey to any menu item and not only, so there is no "technological" kind of issue in unifying hotkeys schemes.
Cool! So while it's not officially out yet: When will it be? So far 1.2x hasn't done the job for me, but I'm confident 1.3 is a lot better. I very much hope it will, because I'm carrying around a windoze on my computer for the sole purpose of running InDesign... kind of annoying.
Take care!
David
On Mon, 7 Feb 2005, Robert Wittams wrote:
Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 10:34:22 +0000 From: Robert Wittams <robert@...697...> To: inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: [Inkscape-devel] Re: common interface for graphics apps on the "free desktop"
Alan Horkan wrote:
There is one major factor that would make merging Scribus with GIMP or Inkscape very difficult. GIMP and Inkscape are both based on Gtk+, and deeply, too. (the 'g' in Gtk is for GIMP) Scribus is a Qt app.
When I say 'deeply' I mean that not only are the visible GUI pieces based on Gtk, but also a great portion of the internal structure.
Well, I don't really see the use of different toolkits being a huge problem really.
As theming engines and desktop standards get better it should become more and more difficult for normal users to notice which toolkits the developers have used. (I'm optimistic but not optimistic enough to venture a guess as to when exactly this will happen)
Hopefully sooner rather than later, take a look at metatheme: http://metatheme.advel.cz
I had heard of it but haven't made time to look at it yet.
- Alan
Alan Horkan wrote:
On Thu, 3 Feb 2005, Jakub Steiner wrote:
One of the good things about Adobe's product line is that they "work together". Same tasks require the same interface. Shortcuts are consistent.
On the free desktop we have two major graphics applications, Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org) and GIMP (http://www.gimp.org). It will not be uncommon to have users needing both apps in their workflow. I hope you guys agree trying to have similar consistency helps to provide a sane user experience.
There is definately some room to improve consistancy that wont bother either project but as I'm sure you are aware Inkscape quite deliberately has a different user interface from the GIMP so hopefully we can stick to the bits everyone can agree on.
It is probably worth mentioning that Inkscape is likely to implement some form of dock to help manage the Palette windows. It is also likely in the long term that the toolbar widgets in Inkscape will become more flexible allowing a somewhat more flexible layout of the user interface.
I have now started to put some stuff in the Wiki (maybe we can move it to freedesktop later). http://www.inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Free_Desktop_Graphic_Suite I encourage everyone to add usefull stuff. - Andreas Nilsson
David Christian Berg wrote:
"The next version of Scribus will have redesigned keyboard shortcuts which mostly follow guidelines carefully written out by an Inkscape developer."
There you are ;)
Quietly back from far away from keyboard :) - Felix
It is probably worth mentioning that Inkscape is likely to implement some form of dock to help manage the Palette windows. It is also likely in the long term that the toolbar widgets in Inkscape will become more flexible allowing a somewhat more flexible layout of the user interface.
I have now started to put some stuff in the Wiki (maybe we can move it to freedesktop later). http://www.inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Free_Desktop_Graphic_Suite
Not sure how you want to arrange the page so I'm commenting here first, and I'll copy stuff across if you add some headings or something.
Stroke Dialog
The inkscape stroke dialog is what I prefer to call a Palette and it is intened to be always left open and is deliberately compact. The GIMP uses a transient dialog which is quite different and follows the GNOME HIG rules for layout of that kind of dialog. This is a perfectly valid approach and for GIMP users I dont think the stroke options are so important that they need a palette.
Close Dialog
The Inkscape close dialog is the closest to what the GNOME HIG specifies.
There have been recent attempts to get either a standard GTK_STOCK_DISCARD (the label would probably be "Close Without Saving") or a whole standard GTK Close dialog.
The GIMP has more than one close Dialog and (although the current version may have improved) last time I looked wasn't even internally consistant.
The GIMP has a seperate transform tool which I think might be better than than a dialog like Inkscape has but the on canvas transform tools in Inkscape are pretty good so I dont think I've really used the dialog.
- Alan H.
Alan Horkan wrote:
It is probably worth mentioning that Inkscape is likely to implement some form of dock to help manage the Palette windows. It is also likely in the long term that the toolbar widgets in Inkscape will become more flexible allowing a somewhat more flexible layout of the user interface.
I have now started to put some stuff in the Wiki (maybe we can move it to freedesktop later). http://www.inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Free_Desktop_Graphic_Suite
Not sure how you want to arrange the page so I'm commenting here first, and I'll copy stuff across if you add some headings or something.
I have now divided the dialogs into their own pages, so if someone is only intrested in say, the close dialog, the other screenshots will not get in the way. You can add your comments where you think they will suite best (in a dialogs own page or in the main dialogs page...). I will upload some more screenshots tomorrow. - Andreas Nilsson
On Thu, Feb 03, 2005 at 08:57:45PM +0100, Jakub Steiner wrote:
On the free desktop we have two major graphics applications, Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org) and GIMP (http://www.gimp.org). It will not be uncommon to have users needing both apps in their workflow. I hope you guys agree trying to have similar consistency helps to provide a sane user experience.
People like me will be using GIMP & Inkscape simultaneously. It's _not_ about forgetting what a user has been used to in the past. Having inconsistent behavior makes one stumble in both apps.
It would be cool if somebody found the motivation to write up some extension to the Gnome HIG, defining a standard behaviour for gfx apps (*hint* *hint* ;).
I think this is an excellent idea. I would love to see this work undertaken.
It sounds like this would involve identifying menu layout, toolbar layout, keyboard accelerators, and other aspects felt important by users. Perhaps this could be done as an addendum, or placed directly into sections 4, 5, and 10.
Anyone interested in volunteering for this writing?
Bryce
participants (11)
-
Alan Horkan -
Alexandre Prokoudine -
Andreas Nilsson -
Bob Jamison -
Bryce Harrington -
bulia byak -
David Christian Berg -
Felix Rabe -
Jakub Steiner -
Robert Wittams -
Sven Neumann