Hi all,
as I've learned in the past few days, investigating or fixing other things while waiting for tedious compiles to finish can be quite productive. :) [1]
In revision #16617 I added two spin buttons to the toolbar of the node tool which allow exact editing of node coordinates (this was long overdue - see bugs #170116 and #172113). Please test and report any irregularities. ;-)
One thing to note is that originally I had planned to clear the entry fields when two or more nodes are selected. But I didn't know how to do this (is it possible at all?), so I decided to go for a quick hack and display the coordinates of the center of the bounding box instead. This turned out to be quite nice because it allows one to quickly align several nodes in the following way: Select them, press Alt+x (which switches focus to the coordinate entry fields) and press enter. Since the first entry field already shows a new X coordinate (lying in the middle between the extremal nodes), this aligns all the nodes vertically to this coordinate.
Although at first it was a kind of stopgap solution I now really like the concept. Unfortunately, this "feature" is not really usable by keyboard alone yet because if you want to align the Y coordinates, you need to press Alt+x and then Tab in order to get to the second entry. But since the first one (for the X coordinates) already shows a new value, pressing tab sets the X coordinates to this value, no matter if this is desired or not.
Suggestions for possible solutions are welcome. To summarize, the options I can think of are:
- clear the entries if more than one node is selected, or - somehow prevent the nodes' coordinates from being changed while tabbing between the entries
both of which I don't know how to do. :-/
Thanks for any hints and suggestions, Max
P.S.: I'm going to add this to the Release Notes tomorrow. I'm just too tired right now to find good phrasings in English. ;)
[1] Aside: Especially when using a distributed version control system like git so that you can work on several things at once. It's such a pleasure compared to svn! I can only heartily recommend people to use it (or rather git-svn in our case because we need to be able to commit to the repository, of course).
On Dec 5, 2007 12:12 AM, Maximilian Albert <Anhalter42@...173...> wrote:
Hi all,
as I've learned in the past few days, investigating or fixing other things while waiting for tedious compiles to finish can be quite productive. :) [1]
In revision #16617 I added two spin buttons to the toolbar of the node tool which allow exact editing of node coordinates (this was long overdue - see bugs #170116 and #172113). Please test and report any irregularities. ;-)
Wow! Thanks a lot, it was indeed a long requested feature.
One thing to note is that originally I had planned to clear the entry fields when two or more nodes are selected. But I didn't know how to do this (is it possible at all?)
It is possible. See how the zoom spinbutton in the statusbar is done. Basically, you register two converter functions, from the numeric value to display string and back. Then you can have any display in the spinbutton and yet the spinbutton will keep working as a numeric control with all the conveniences. In zoom control, this is used for adding %, but you use the same approach for blanking the display string.
BTW the same approach can be used for implementing another long-standing request: enable typing expressions such as 2+2 in spinbuttons. But this needs to be done centrally in one place, so it affects all spinbuttons in the program.
display the coordinates of the center of the bounding box instead. This turned out to be quite nice because it allows one to quickly align several nodes in the following way: Select them, press Alt+x (which switches focus to the coordinate entry fields) and press enter. Since the first entry field already shows a new X coordinate (lying in the middle between the extremal nodes), this aligns all the nodes vertically to this coordinate.
I'll look at this and tell you what I think about it usability-wise :)
A few comments so far:
- we need a unit selector for these values
- we also need something similar for node handles - I think not X/Y but radius/angle controls, for each handle
- disabling the fields is unreliable: select a node; press f1; del to delete the path; f2 to go back to node tool; the spinbuttons are not disabled
bulia byak wrote:
A few comments so far:
we need a unit selector for these values
disabling the fields is unreliable: select a node; press f1; del to
delete the path; f2 to go back to node tool; the spinbuttons are not disabled
Both are fixed now. (BTW, my admiration goes to the guys who wrote the corresponding handling code - it's a pleasure to use).
- we also need something similar for node handles - I think not X/Y
but radius/angle controls, for each handle
I'll look into this as soon as possible. I only fear that it will clutter the toolbar to some extent. On the other hand, the calligraphy toolbar is also quite crowded, so I guess it's alright.
As for clearing the entry fields, I'll wait for your opinion regarding the way things currently work (modulo the mentioned tab bug). On the other hand, we will need to do the clearing for the radius/angle fields anyway, and I suppose it's not really desirable to have preset values for some fields but not for the others when multiple nodes are selected. In addition, I don't know how to make it obvious to the user what the meaning of these preset values is. Anyway, I'd be interested in opinions.
Max
As for clearing the entry fields, I'll wait for your opinion regarding
the way things currently work
I've been using this new feature for a project. The first time that I tried it with multiple nodes, I didn't expected it to do what it did : for me, the coordinates were those of the center of the bounding box, and thus when modifying the values, I wanted to modify the coordinates of the center of the bounding box. But finally, I think the solution you choose is better than what I first expected the tool to do. It will work the same way than selecting 2 shapes with different fill colors.
And just another issue : when changing units with multiple nodes, there is the same kind of problem than the "tabbing" bug : the values are applied.
Steren
participants (3)
-
bulia byak -
Maximilian Albert -
Steren Giannini