Re: [Inkscape-devel] pressure sensitivity for Pencil tool using powerstroke?
Yes GIMP has a LOT of good stuff in it. Let's be a bit constructive here. This is not a good place to bash GIMP if you want people to take your comments and suggestions seriously.
On 31 Aug 2017 22:07, "Miguel Lopez" <reptillia39@...3425...> wrote:
GIMP has something good in it? (I'm not a fan of GIMP, quite the opposite) I prefer to have options to expand options manually, and that is what I been doing in other programs.
On 8/31/2017 10:46 AM, Nate Yungkans wrote:
planning on creating a thought out set of wireframes that will explain what I'm thinking of. What gimp does well is the rearranging of tabs and having a consistent hierarchy.
Being able to rearrange placement of tool bars is also very desirable so people can customize the layout. Programs like illustrator often have both a tool bar for quick functions and a tab menu for complete functionality.
------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------ Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Inkscape-devel mailing list Inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-devel
The thing is a lot of people have issues with GIMP because of it GUI, but the real issue there is having to go through hoops to do some things, and there are things that could have been separate tools, for examples, move tools have three things, and a lot of people expect certain things about GIMP to work like X program. Inkscape should avoid the issue of having to go through hoops when workflow is considered, and emulate what standard programs does to a extent, and not have to do things differently because we want this to be unique logic. We should be looking at how we can make people work with Inkscape most effectively, and looking at programs where GUI complaints is rarely even heard about. Illustrator is not exactly perfect in regards to workflow, and I find Affinity Designer much easier to work with, and natural to work with, and there are some cases where I have to go through hoops on Illustrator (like avoiding joining curves when making a curve where a node is exactly on another node's location).
Also, if you look at Adobe Photoshop 3D thing, that thing is barely even used by many professional, and then there is the pen tool which some people avoid like the plague. I can see why people avoid Photoshop 3D tools (Like terrible GUI for example), but to be fair, Adobe is far, and by far way behind on the 3D thing, and will always be. So, radically changing things automatically is not a very good idea.
Finally, I got another idea, do we have some sort FAQ document within Inkscape? Rhino (NURBS modeling software) has a way to automatically access FAQ when tools are being used, and it helped me learn how Rhino works, and what their features does. This would help users navigate through Inkscape faster, and some of the GUI complaints would die down a bit.
On 8/31/2017 5:25 PM, C R wrote: Yes GIMP has a LOT of good stuff in it. Let's be a bit constructive here. This is not a good place to bash GIMP if you want people to take your comments and suggestions seriously.
On 31 Aug 2017 22:07, "Miguel Lopez" <reptillia39@...3425...mailto:reptillia39@...3425...> wrote: GIMP has something good in it? (I'm not a fan of GIMP, quite the opposite) I prefer to have options to expand options manually, and that is what I been doing in other programs.
On 8/31/2017 10:46 AM, Nate Yungkans wrote:
planning on creating a thought out set of wireframes that will explain what I'm thinking of. What gimp does well is the rearranging of tabs and having a consistent hierarchy.
Being able to rearrange placement of tool bars is also very desirable so people can customize the layout. Programs like illustrator often have both a tool bar for quick functions and a tab menu for complete functionality.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Inkscape-devel mailing list Inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.netmailto:Inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-devel
Hi Miguel and all,
On 31/08/2017 23:45, Miguel Lopez wrote:
Finally, I got another idea, do we have some sort FAQ document within Inkscape? Rhino (NURBS modeling software) has a way to automatically access FAQ when tools are being used, and it helped me learn how Rhino works, and what their features does. This would help users navigate through Inkscape faster, and some of the GUI complaints would die down a bit.
In Help menu, there is "Inkscape Manual" and "FAQ" entry, don't they do the job ? How could it be improved ?
Also on the topic, I find the bottom bar showing current status and tool shortcut really handy to discover and remember functionalities.
You seem to have experience with a lot of different softwares, which is very useful.
Maybe screenshots / documentation of the features you find useful elsewhere could help, because not everybody has access to these softwares.
A separate thread for other UI/UX proposals might be easier to follow, since the "Pencil tool using powerstroke" proposal seems awesomely fixed and successful :)
@devs, is inkscape-devel the best place to discuss UI/UX improvement ideas ?
Is https://gitlab.com/groups/inkscape/issues suitable too ? It might be easier to keep track and attach images..
Cheers,
Victor
I personally love Inkscape's current toolbar implementation and have found it has a very short learning curve (easy to learn) when compared to other software.
I really like that picking a tool (from the vertical list) gives a secondary horizontal toolbar that has more refinements for that specific tool. It's really nice.
My two cents.
________________________________ From: Victor / tokiop <tor@...2892...> Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2017 5:17:53 PM To: inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] pressure sensitivity for Pencil tool using powerstroke?
Hi Miguel and all,
On 31/08/2017 23:45, Miguel Lopez wrote:
Finally, I got another idea, do we have some sort FAQ document within Inkscape? Rhino (NURBS modeling software) has a way to automatically access FAQ when tools are being used, and it helped me learn how Rhino works, and what their features does. This would help users navigate through Inkscape faster, and some of the GUI complaints would die down a bit.
In Help menu, there is "Inkscape Manual" and "FAQ" entry, don't they do the job ? How could it be improved ?
Also on the topic, I find the bottom bar showing current status and tool shortcut really handy to discover and remember functionalities.
You seem to have experience with a lot of different softwares, which is very useful.
Maybe screenshots / documentation of the features you find useful elsewhere could help, because not everybody has access to these softwares.
A separate thread for other UI/UX proposals might be easier to follow, since the "Pencil tool using powerstroke" proposal seems awesomely fixed and successful :)
@devs, is inkscape-devel the best place to discuss UI/UX improvement ideas ?
Is https://gitlab.com/groups/inkscape/issues suitable too ? It might be easier to keep track and attach images..
Cheers,
Victor
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Inkscape-devel mailing list Inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-devel
The only thing that's missing from inkscape's toolbar implementation is the way in which parts of the toolbar features are enabled or disabled, hidden or shown at the right times. Sometimes what the tool needs is just fewer tools, and hopefully putting more configuration into the xml will allow us to offer users the ability to show and hide different adjusters into these user interfaces.
But this is a step up in the dynamic nature of inkscape's toolbar and should be thought out some more so our designers can really play with it more.
Martin,
On 31 August 2017 at 21:35, James Fritzler <jimbox13@...3425...> wrote:
I personally love Inkscape's current toolbar implementation and have found it has a very short learning curve (easy to learn) when compared to other software.
I really like that picking a tool (from the vertical list) gives a secondary horizontal toolbar that has more refinements for that specific tool. It's really nice.
My two cents.
From: Victor / tokiop <tor@...2892...> Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2017 5:17:53 PM To: inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] pressure sensitivity for Pencil tool using powerstroke?
Hi Miguel and all,
On 31/08/2017 23:45, Miguel Lopez wrote:
Finally, I got another idea, do we have some sort FAQ document within Inkscape? Rhino (NURBS modeling software) has a way to automatically access FAQ when tools are being used, and it helped me learn how Rhino works, and what their features does. This would help users navigate through Inkscape faster, and some of the GUI complaints would die down a bit.
In Help menu, there is "Inkscape Manual" and "FAQ" entry, don't they do the job ? How could it be improved ?
Also on the topic, I find the bottom bar showing current status and tool shortcut really handy to discover and remember functionalities.
You seem to have experience with a lot of different softwares, which is very useful.
Maybe screenshots / documentation of the features you find useful elsewhere could help, because not everybody has access to these softwares.
A separate thread for other UI/UX proposals might be easier to follow, since the "Pencil tool using powerstroke" proposal seems awesomely fixed and successful :)
@devs, is inkscape-devel the best place to discuss UI/UX improvement ideas ?
Is https://gitlab.com/groups/inkscape/issues suitable too ? It might be easier to keep track and attach images..
Cheers,
Victor
Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Inkscape-devel mailing list Inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-devel
Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Inkscape-devel mailing list Inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-devel
The thing is a lot of people have issues with GIMP because of it GUI,
That's not a problem you can avoid with tools that are complex in nature. People also have problems with Inkscape's current UI. Some is complexity (the filters dialog springs to mind), and some because of inconsistent behaviour and lack of discover-ability. It's not a problem that can be summed up by denouncing other software packages as "bad", it's something which is a constant battle for professional-quality tools. No project gets it perfect, because there is not a single solution to the problem, but many possibilities, and in all cases UI consistency is key to perceived usability. A brush dialogue is analogous to the fill/stroke dialogue, so not only is it a good idea, it also fits perfectly in with Inkscape's current UI conventions.
but the real issue there is having to go through hoops to do some things, and there are things that could have been separate tools, for examples, move tools have three things, and a lot of people expect certain things about GIMP to work like X program.
So? Inkscape has plenty of these issues too. The current reason GIMP has so many tools is because the tools still do *different* things - even though there's a unified transform tool, people still want the scale and rotate tools because you can enter in manual rotation and scale values (something you can't do in the unified transform tool). Another criticism is that there are too many tools, which causes confusion, and increasingly clutterd UI. Inkscape's toolset runs right off the screen on most of my computers. What about the snapping dialog? Have you ever seen a more cluttered strange collection of buttons in a graphics program? :) My point: Let's not criticise other software when we have a myriad of issues to solve ourselves.
Inkscape should avoid the issue of having to go through hoops when workflow is considered, and emulate what standard programs does to a extent, and not have to do things differently because we want this to be unique logic.
No one is doing or suggesting that. To my knowledge, we have never done anything "just to be different". Workflows are heavily considered when making changes, both in terms of current workflows, and possibly better workflows. If there's a clearly better workflow, we need to explore it, not to be unique, but to provide a better, easier, less hoop-ridden experience. Inkscape suffers quite a bit from hoops presently. One problem is that folks are so used to the hoops that if we change things, even if it's better workflow, it confuses the current user base. It's a very tricky problem, and one that requires a lot of consideration before a solution or change is implemented.
We should be looking at how we can make people work with Inkscape most effectively.
Agreed, and that's what we always do. There is no magic formula for it that fixes every problem.
and looking at programs where GUI complaints is rarely even heard about. Illustrator is not exactly perfect in regards to workflow, and I find Affinity Designer much easier to work with.
Have you seen/used the brush dialog in Affinity designer? It's similar to GIMPs - that's exactly what we are talking about : taking brushes and giving it it's own dialogue so you can actually see all the brushes rather than having to choose from a drop-down, or chase ever-increasing numbers of brush icons which run off the screen.
and natural to work with, and there are some cases where I have to go through hoops on Illustrator (like avoiding joining curves when making a curve where a node is exactly on another node's location).
Inkscape has this issue as well. When making a heart-shape yesterday, if two nodes overlap at the corner where the two curves at the top meet in the middle, there's no good way to join the nodes without first breaking them apart, and then re-joining them. Anything else ruins the curves. So again, difficult problems, with equally difficult solutions.
I can see why people avoid Photoshop 3D tools (Like terrible GUI for example), but to be fair, Adobe is far, and by far way behind on the 3D thing, and will always be. So, radically changing things automatically is not a very good idea.
If we can pull the topic back to the proposed brushes dialogue, that would be great. This isn't really the place to rant about other software packages. It's a distraction from the task at hand.
Finally, I got another idea, do we have some sort FAQ document within Inkscape? Rhino (NURBS modeling software) has a way to automatically access FAQ when tools are being used, and it helped me learn how Rhino works, and what their features does. This would help users navigate through Inkscape faster, and some of the GUI complaints would die down a bit.
So would increasing usability, for example adding a brush dialogue to show brushes - it doesn't need explaining, and that's precisely what we're discussing here. Again, if we could please stay on-topic of the brushes dialogue. Otherwise nothing gets done.
-C
On 8/31/2017 5:25 PM, C R wrote:
Yes GIMP has a LOT of good stuff in it. Let's be a bit constructive here. This is not a good place to bash GIMP if you want people to take your comments and suggestions seriously.
On 31 Aug 2017 22:07, "Miguel Lopez" <reptillia39@...3425...> wrote:
GIMP has something good in it? (I'm not a fan of GIMP, quite the opposite) I prefer to have options to expand options manually, and that is what I been doing in other programs.
On 8/31/2017 10:46 AM, Nate Yungkans wrote:
planning on creating a thought out set of wireframes that will explain what I'm thinking of. What gimp does well is the rearranging of tabs and having a consistent hierarchy.
Being able to rearrange placement of tool bars is also very desirable so people can customize the layout. Programs like illustrator often have both a tool bar for quick functions and a tab menu for complete functionality.
Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Inkscape-devel mailing list Inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-devel
That's not a problem you can avoid with tools that are complex in nature. People also have problems with Inkscape's current UI. Some is complexity (the filters dialog springs to mind), and some because of inconsistent behaviour and lack of discover-ability. It's not a problem that can be summed up by denouncing other software packages as "bad", it's something which is a constant battle for professional-quality tools. No project gets it perfect, because there is not a single solution to the problem, but many possibilities, and in all cases UI consistency is key to perceived usability. A brush dialogue is analogous to the fill/stroke dialogue, so not only is it a good idea, it also fits perfectly in with Inkscape's current UI conventions.
You're right, there isn't any perfect solution, but that's kind of the beauty of the software market and with a huge downside to not being able to please anyone. If there was a perfect solution, I'd imagine every software would be the same with different tools being the only thing that differentiate them. If there are inconsistent behavior, and lack of discover-ability, then those should be addressed, but one step at a time. The FAQ thing I suggested would help with the discover-ability issue to a extent, and I was thinking of something like a small picture that would pop up for new users when you hover your mouse over a icon, and if you click on it, it'll take you directly to a page where it describes the tools and options in greater details. Not sure if this would help Inkscape, but it definitely did help me a lot when learning Rhino NURBS software.
Have you seen/used the brush dialog in Affinity designer? It's similar to GIMPs - that's exactly what we are talking about : taking brushes and giving it it's own dialogue so you can actually see all the brushes rather than having to choose from a drop-down, or chase ever-increasing numbers of brush icons which run off the screen.
I rarely use brushes on illustration software besides Krita, and Photoshop and GIMP if one is to use it as a illustration software. So, no I haven't seen it. But, I would prefer the old Krita approach where you can select a engine, and then customize the brush engine to your will, and it'll stay that way. But, in the case of Inkscape, with less flexibility than Illustrator, I'd think I prefer with the Jabier patch, and I actually thought of a solution to your issue with the heart shape thing, but the solution is so far off that it's not going to be implemented any time soon, but it does resolve hoop issues, and enable Inkscape brushes to be far more powerful.
Inkscape has this issue as well. When making a heart-shape yesterday, if two nodes overlap at the corner where the two curves at the top meet in the middle, there's no good way to join the nodes without first breaking them apart, and then re-joining them. Anything else ruins the curves. So again, difficult problems, with equally difficult solutions.
A hypothetical solution to this would be additional icons on the bottom of the viewport, and those icons are snapping button much in the same way that Rhino does. Something like:
*Snap to Perpendicular
*Snap to Tangent
*Snap to Parallel
*Autojoin-Autobreak-Auto-rejoin
*Automirror X/Y using first nodes
*Autoconvert Stroke to Path
*Autounion objects using layer as reference or by color.
And so on... I believe this would make it easier for users to generate splines, and minimize the hoop issue, but I really don't think this is the time for this, but I will file a bug report as I believe this would resolve so much hoop issues. This solution works for brushes and other tools, I'd believe.
On 9/1/2017 4:02 AM, C R wrote:
The thing is a lot of people have issues with GIMP because of it GUI,
That's not a problem you can avoid with tools that are complex in nature. People also have problems with Inkscape's current UI. Some is complexity (the filters dialog springs to mind), and some because of inconsistent behaviour and lack of discover-ability. It's not a problem that can be summed up by denouncing other software packages as "bad", it's something which is a constant battle for professional-quality tools. No project gets it perfect, because there is not a single solution to the problem, but many possibilities, and in all cases UI consistency is key to perceived usability. A brush dialogue is analogous to the fill/stroke dialogue, so not only is it a good idea, it also fits perfectly in with Inkscape's current UI conventions.
but the real issue there is having to go through hoops to do some things, and there are things that could have been separate tools, for examples, move tools have three things, and a lot of people expect certain things about GIMP to work like X program.
So? Inkscape has plenty of these issues too. The current reason GIMP has so many tools is because the tools still do *different* things - even though there's a unified transform tool, people still want the scale and rotate tools because you can enter in manual rotation and scale values (something you can't do in the unified transform tool). Another criticism is that there are too many tools, which causes confusion, and increasingly clutterd UI. Inkscape's toolset runs right off the screen on most of my computers. What about the snapping dialog? Have you ever seen a more cluttered strange collection of buttons in a graphics program? :) My point: Let's not criticise other software when we have a myriad of issues to solve ourselves.
Inkscape should avoid the issue of having to go through hoops when workflow is considered, and emulate what standard programs does to a extent, and not have to do things differently because we want this to be unique logic.
No one is doing or suggesting that. To my knowledge, we have never done anything "just to be different". Workflows are heavily considered when making changes, both in terms of current workflows, and possibly better workflows. If there's a clearly better workflow, we need to explore it, not to be unique, but to provide a better, easier, less hoop-ridden experience. Inkscape suffers quite a bit from hoops presently. One problem is that folks are so used to the hoops that if we change things, even if it's better workflow, it confuses the current user base. It's a very tricky problem, and one that requires a lot of consideration before a solution or change is implemented.
We should be looking at how we can make people work with Inkscape most effectively.
Agreed, and that's what we always do. There is no magic formula for it that fixes every problem.
and looking at programs where GUI complaints is rarely even heard about. Illustrator is not exactly perfect in regards to workflow, and I find Affinity Designer much easier to work with.
Have you seen/used the brush dialog in Affinity designer? It's similar to GIMPs - that's exactly what we are talking about : taking brushes and giving it it's own dialogue so you can actually see all the brushes rather than having to choose from a drop-down, or chase ever-increasing numbers of brush icons which run off the screen.
and natural to work with, and there are some cases where I have to go through hoops on Illustrator (like avoiding joining curves when making a curve where a node is exactly on another node's location).
Inkscape has this issue as well. When making a heart-shape yesterday, if two nodes overlap at the corner where the two curves at the top meet in the middle, there's no good way to join the nodes without first breaking them apart, and then re-joining them. Anything else ruins the curves. So again, difficult problems, with equally difficult solutions.
I can see why people avoid Photoshop 3D tools (Like terrible GUI for example), but to be fair, Adobe is far, and by far way behind on the 3D thing, and will always be. So, radically changing things automatically is not a very good idea.
If we can pull the topic back to the proposed brushes dialogue, that would be great. This isn't really the place to rant about other software packages. It's a distraction from the task at hand.
Finally, I got another idea, do we have some sort FAQ document within Inkscape? Rhino (NURBS modeling software) has a way to automatically access FAQ when tools are being used, and it helped me learn how Rhino works, and what their features does. This would help users navigate through Inkscape faster, and some of the GUI complaints would die down a bit.
So would increasing usability, for example adding a brush dialogue to show brushes - it doesn't need explaining, and that's precisely what we're discussing here. Again, if we could please stay on-topic of the brushes dialogue. Otherwise nothing gets done.
-C
On 8/31/2017 5:25 PM, C R wrote:
Yes GIMP has a LOT of good stuff in it. Let's be a bit constructive here. This is not a good place to bash GIMP if you want people to take your comments and suggestions seriously.
On 31 Aug 2017 22:07, "Miguel Lopez" <reptillia39@...3425...> wrote:
GIMP has something good in it? (I'm not a fan of GIMP, quite the opposite) I prefer to have options to expand options manually, and that is what I been doing in other programs.
On 8/31/2017 10:46 AM, Nate Yungkans wrote:
planning on creating a thought out set of wireframes that will explain what I'm thinking of. What gimp does well is the rearranging of tabs and having a consistent hierarchy.
Being able to rearrange placement of tool bars is also very desirable so people can customize the layout. Programs like illustrator often have both a tool bar for quick functions and a tab menu for complete functionality.
Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Inkscape-devel mailing list Inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-devel
participants (5)
-
C R -
James Fritzler -
Martin Owens -
Miguel Lopez -
Victor / tokiop