On 07-06-11 21:38, Johan Engelen wrote:

Hi all, I'd like some usabilty input for this bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/791098

It requests an option to have the Save a Copy dialog always open in the current document's directory. The Save As... dialog already has this option (preferences > save).

Should I add an option below the Save As... dialog option in the preference dialog, or should I use the same setting for both dialogs? The reason I ask, is that I am a little afraid of adding yet another option...

As krzysztof said it's probably safe to reuse the same setting, but... I can imagine that someone has a workflow where he uses "Save a copy" as export and wants to put his exported files directly into a different directory. Or a similar workflow where save a copy is used to do a kind of versioning (possibly not a good idea, but it's not unlikely that people do use it like this).

So how about technically making it a different option but letting it default to whatever "Save as" does and not exposing it in the dialog for now. I think as long as we don't explicitly set the option it should not be written out to the preferences and so should simply follow the "Save as" option. And this way it would be extraordinarily easy to later change it to expose the other option, and even before that people could use a work-around immediately if they run into trouble.

Johan Engelen-4 wrote:

Hi all, I'd like some usabilty input for this bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/791098

It requests an option to have the Save a Copy dialog always open in the current document's directory. The Save As... dialog already has this option (preferences > save).

Should I add an option below the Save As... dialog option in the preference dialog, or should I use the same setting for both dialogs? The reason I ask, is that I am a little afraid of adding yet another option...

Thanks for advice :), Johan

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Well, not to make things more difficoult, but I see two scenarios:

a) both the "Save As..." and "Save a Copy..." dialogs start from the current directory and then remember the same path when changed within the same session (i.e. I do a "Save As...", move to /newProject/newDrawing/ and save, then when doing a "Save a Copy..." I start already in /newProject/newDrawing/); here I would keep only one option in the preference dialog; one option for one (limited) functionality;

b) each dialog has its own remembered path, i.e. when first opening, ech of them start from the current directory (or from its own stored one); here I assume that someone will eventually ask separate options some day... This is because you do "Save As..." to change the name (but not the format) of the current file, so you usually want it in the current directory, or change it the first time then keep working on the new one; "Save a Copy..." is useful when you want to also change the format (for me it's regularly PDF, and I'd like this dialog remember the last format used too... :); I've read that some users (not me) appreciate (and asked) the ability of saving files in nonSVG formats in a dedicated directory, different than the current one and always use the same; to achieve this with only one option, they would lose the ability of making a "Save As..." starting from the current directory (this would be a half-option for a double-functionality).

My opinion is that the "Save a Copy..." dialog is too similar to the "Save As..." one so they almost overlap; the only difference I can see is that Inkscape keeps the current document opened after a "Save a Copy..." while moving to the new one after a "Save As..."; it's quite a useful-but-hidden-subtle difference that becomes evident only when you close the document and are or aren't asked for saving it. I agree that two options for this seem redundant, but if the "Save a Copy..." was "Export to another format..." instead, probably it wouldn't and the two functions would be more distinguishable. To me, it's just a psychological issue.

A way to solve this could also be to keep one option but make it related to the "Save a Copy..." dialog only, having the "Save As..." always start from the current directory within each Inkscape's session, which, I feel, is intuitive as most programs behave in this way (at least under Windows).

Just my two cents. Luca

On 8-6-2011 10:15, Jasper van de Gronde wrote:

So how about technically making it a different option but letting it default to whatever "Save as" does and not exposing it in the dialog for now.

Excellent idea! It's done :-)

-Johan