As I'd especially like to work on polishing the user interface, I think I should probably ask you first about your position on the HIG, etc.

My position is that we should be HIG compliant where it makes sense or where non-complicance does not bring considerable benefits (such as the save confirm dialog). Obviously HIG was not written with vector editors in mind, so it should never be the final word, only one of the arguments in a discussion.

noticed that many parts of the UI are still not HIG compliant or very non-standard for no obvious reason. The best example probably is the secondary toolbar, which shows buttons instead of typical toolbar icons.

Mental has recently converted the main toolbar to standard GTK buttons (non-bevelled). I don't know about the secondary one, but I would like to see how it looks with standard buttons, if only to compare.

But there are also smaller examples where I'm unsure, for example I wonder if there is a specific reasons to show all shortcuts as lowercase instead of uppercase.

Simple: to me and other Emacs users, Ctrl+F means actually Ctrl+Shift+f. So writing Ctrl+f with lowercase is less likely to confuse, IMHO.

interface standards? :) And should I ask before each change?

For changes that are directly related to the core vector editing interface, usually it makes sense to ask (but if the change is not too disruptive, it's better to patch first and ask later, because this will give us the opportunity to test your change). One exception: if you want to _remove_ some non-dead code or functionality, ask first :) Simple interface changes in areas that are not vector-specific (such as improvements in dialogs, etc) can be made without discussion, but please don't forget to put them into the changelog (and please add yourself to the AUTHORS file too).

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