Re: [Inkscape-devel] Some suggestions for the fill and stroke dialog
On Fri, 04 Feb 2005 12:11:06 +0100, David Christian Berg <david@...407...> wrote:
- a current color indicator (like the one in the "color selector" in
your mockup), except that it must not be in any dialog, but at the bottom of the main toolbar, on on the left of the horizontal palette
Hmm, from Adobe I'm used to having it under the main toolbar, an it's make sense to be there, but with the current layout it would be too small.
It doesn't need to be that big. Just a square with a border. Our main toolbar is wide enough for it I think.
So maybe I'd just put two buttons in front of the color-selection bar/palette at the bottom.I think that would make a lot of sense.
Possible, too.
With these, 90% of reasons to open fill&stroke will be eliminated, and its size won't matter much anymore.
Well, you'll still have to have a dialog to change the colors (opening via double click)
If our default palette has some common colors, changing them will be unfrequent.
and you'll have to have a dialog for stroke stuff.
Also unfrequent with the exception of stroke width.
Concerning the CMYK vs RGB argument, Andreas gave: I think it should be a drop down, because you've gotta be able to define RGB colors, even when you're in a CMYK document, but the standard of the drop down has to be set by document prefs.
I don't care "what kind of document is this". Inkscape is a design tool, not prepress tool. I want the color mode which is the most convenient for me to THINK IN, and most often this is either HSV or wheel. If after I create my design I need to convert it to CMYK for some reason, I can use other tools for that. The CMYKness of a document must not affect my design process. The fact that in Adobe products it DOES affect it, is one of the main problems I have with those products.
With palette, you click to change fill, shift+click to change stroke (same as the dropper tool now). Again, using fill&stroke for this will be much less frequent, so there's no need to break it up.
(There also should always be one empty color field to add new colors
Not empty, but a "duplicate color" command in the right-click menu of the swatches.
and you'll have to be able to drag colors within the pallete.
Yes
Furthermore: have a Inkscape setting to have _no_ colors in the palette at startup. That's the way I'm working, predefined colors (other than black and white) are unnecessary for me and hinder the workflow, while other people might want to have them.)
Yes, though new users should see a complete enough palette by default
Point is that maybe this should be a document setting,
Right now it is more of an Inkscape setting, because the color selector remembers the tab you used last. And I like it this way. It's not like length units which indeed may be different per document; colors are just colors everywhere.
Hmm, disagreed. Put the other stroke stuff into an expander like in the mock-up, so that you can hide and show it easily, when you need it. In general I don't like the idea being able to do the same thing at multiple places.
Exactly, this is what we need - one "quick" way to do something and one "complete" way to do the same. Like the quick layer selector and the layer dialog. I see absolutely no problem with this. Changing stroke width is such a common operation that it MUST be in the window interface somewhere.
I'm not yet sure, how the selector in the mock-up is supposed to work. Wouldn't it make sense if it had tabs at the top for switching between start, join and end markers?
Yeah, probably, details need to be worked out, what I like however is the two-dimensional table instead of drop-down menu.
Or maybe you should just have a Markers dialogue without any lines shown in the preview and you drag them and drop them into the stroke-style dialogue as start, join or end marker.... I think that would make a lot of sense, because that way you can easily use any marker anywhere.
As opposed to what? Can't you now use them anywhere?
SVGs version 1.1 documents cannot use CMYK at all, so this is irrelevant. The CMYK selector is just a convenience. And then, even if I have a CMYK document of some kind, why on earth can't I use HSV or RGB to find a color I want, and have it converted to CMYK by the program?
It's true, but for some reason graphic programs usually distinguish a little stronger between the color spaces.
I really hate that. I think the reason is that most of those programs are just old, and were initially paper-oriented, and thus keep sticking to their old superstitions even though they are mostly irrelevant today.
Separating markers does make sense, though maybe not into a dialog but into a new tab in fill&stroke.
hmm, that make me think of something. why not put everything in separate tabs? Like [stroke weight], [caps and joins] (including miter limit -- miter limit needs a spinbox!), [pattern] (this might as well get more options like in Corel, where you can define your own pattern styles) and [markers].
Possible too, but only if we use icons only, not words, for tab headers, otherwise they won't fit.
Hmmpff, the quick layer selection?? Maybe it's a good idea, once there is another layer/objects dialogue, but as is right now, I haven't yet managed to make layers part of my workflow. I only notice them, when for some strange reason I can't move one object behind another.
I use layers all the time and I really cannot imagine how I lived without them. Yes, there are some operations that are difficult and clumsy with the quick layer selector, but for many simple common operations it is very convenient and natural, indeed more natural than the layer dialogs in other apps.
With these, 90% of reasons to open fill&stroke will be eliminated, and its size won't matter much anymore.
Well, you'll still have to have a dialog to change the colors (opening via double click)
If our default palette has some common colors, changing them will be unfrequent.
As I said below: I don't like the idea of common colors in a way that they are pre defined. That means I have to add all the colors I want to use to the palette. easiest to do so is double click a color, which opens a dialogue, then you can define the color and name it (will be a flyover hint in the palette).
and you'll have to have a dialog for stroke stuff.
Also unfrequent with the exception of stroke width.
I use join and caps and miter rather frequent, actually
Concerning the CMYK vs RGB argument, Andreas gave: I think it should be a drop down, because you've gotta be able to define RGB colors, even when you're in a CMYK document, but the standard of the drop down has to be set by document prefs.
I don't care "what kind of document is this". Inkscape is a design tool, not prepress tool. I want the color mode which is the most convenient for me to THINK IN, and most often this is either HSV or wheel. If after I create my design I need to convert it to CMYK for some reason, I can use other tools for that. The CMYKness of a document must not affect my design process. The fact that in Adobe products it DOES affect it, is one of the main problems I have with those products.
I actually like to use inkscape for prepress. Why have another tool when all you need to to is get the proper color space? The reason why the differentiation is important is because printing RGB gives other results than printing CMYK. Maybe there could just be an option to convert all colors to one color space or the other?
(There also should always be one empty color field to add new colors
Not empty, but a "duplicate color" command in the right-click menu of the swatches.
Hmm, ok, that'd work as well
Furthermore: have a Inkscape setting to have _no_ colors in the palette at startup. That's the way I'm working, predefined colors (other than black and white) are unnecessary for me and hinder the workflow, while other people might want to have them.)
Yes, though new users should see a complete enough palette by default
Point is that maybe this should be a document setting,
Right now it is more of an Inkscape setting, because the color selector remembers the tab you used last. And I like it this way. It's not like length units which indeed may be different per document; colors are just colors everywhere.
Agreed. Actually I just mixed the two up.
Hmm, disagreed. Put the other stroke stuff into an expander like in the mock-up, so that you can hide and show it easily, when you need it. In general I don't like the idea being able to do the same thing at multiple places.
Exactly, this is what we need - one "quick" way to do something and one "complete" way to do the same. Like the quick layer selector and the layer dialog. I see absolutely no problem with this. Changing stroke width is such a common operation that it MUST be in the window interface somewhere.
K, I wouldn't mind, putting it into the color palette.... That would make sense. Having basic style properties at one place.
I'm not yet sure, how the selector in the mock-up is supposed to work. Wouldn't it make sense if it had tabs at the top for switching between start, join and end markers?
Yeah, probably, details need to be worked out, what I like however is the two-dimensional table instead of drop-down menu.
Or maybe you should just have a Markers dialogue without any lines shown in the preview and you drag them and drop them into the stroke-style dialogue as start, join or end marker.... I think that would make a lot of sense, because that way you can easily use any marker anywhere.
As opposed to what? Can't you now use them anywhere?
With the different images it _feels_ like it were different markers for start, join and end. Markers that are just designed to fit one to another.
It's true, but for some reason graphic programs usually distinguish a little stronger between the color spaces.
I really hate that. I think the reason is that most of those programs are just old, and were initially paper-oriented, and thus keep sticking to their old superstitions even though they are mostly irrelevant today.
Hmm, k, I'm just afraid that there might not be a WYSIWYG for printing.
Separating markers does make sense, though maybe not into a dialog but into a new tab in fill&stroke.
hmm, that make me think of something. why not put everything in separate tabs? Like [stroke weight], [caps and joins] (including miter limit -- miter limit needs a spinbox!), [pattern] (this might as well get more options like in Corel, where you can define your own pattern styles) and [markers].
Possible too, but only if we use icons only, not words, for tab headers, otherwise they won't fit.
Fine with me. is a little more Gimp-like that way anyways.
Hmmpff, the quick layer selection?? Maybe it's a good idea, once there is another layer/objects dialogue, but as is right now, I haven't yet managed to make layers part of my workflow. I only notice them, when for some strange reason I can't move one object behind another.
I use layers all the time and I really cannot imagine how I lived without them. Yes, there are some operations that are difficult and clumsy with the quick layer selector, but for many simple common operations it is very convenient and natural, indeed more natural than the layer dialogs in other apps.
Really? I like the Gimp layer dialog a lot, but that's different. So Adobe is alright, bit I'd like a combined layer and objects dialog in some way.
David
On Fri, 04 Feb 2005 13:18:15 +0100, David Christian Berg <david@...407...> wrote:
If our default palette has some common colors, changing them will be unfrequent.
As I said below: I don't like the idea of common colors in a way that they are pre defined. That means I have to add all the colors I want to use to the palette. easiest to do so is double click a color, which opens a dialogue, then you can define the color and name it (will be a flyover hint in the palette).
Exactly, and I don't see why our current fill&stroke would not fit this workflow.
Also unfrequent with the exception of stroke width.
I use join and caps and miter rather frequent, actually
And double clicking or ctrl-clicking the stroke width thingie would call fill&stroke with the stroke style tab.
I actually like to use inkscape for prepress. Why have another tool when all you need to to is get the proper color space?
Well, for one thing, we simply cannot claim to be a prepress tool, both due to SVG limitations and to our own limitations. Our CMYK color selector is more of a toy (no profiles, no gamut, no nothing).
I use layers all the time and I really cannot imagine how I lived without them. Yes, there are some operations that are difficult and clumsy with the quick layer selector, but for many simple common operations it is very convenient and natural, indeed more natural than the layer dialogs in other apps.
Really? I like the Gimp layer dialog a lot, but that's different. So Adobe is alright, bit I'd like a combined layer and objects dialog in some way.
Really. For example one of the most common operations is, not even changing anything, but simply looking up which layer is current. Doing so with the quick layer selector in the predictable place is so much faster than finding the layers dialog, then scanning (or even scrolling!) the dialog to find the highlighted line... These milliseconds really add up when you work on something complex.
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bulia byak -
David Christian Berg