Hey all,
I've just installed inkscape 0.48 from the nightly build (there is still no stable ppa) since 0.47 started crashing every time I pressed the stroke/fill dialog.
Now my presure sensitivity has gone and I was looking at the new dialog for input devices... I can't make heads nor tales of it.
What is it supposed to be letting me do? What's the difference between the configuration (which has a single checkbox and that's it) and the hardware tab? What is linking for? If the use pressure sensitivity checkbox is checked, then why doesn't it work? Is there anything else? If the testing area is for trying out all the inputs, why is it so confusing? All those little boxes? Where would pressure be shown? Why is the box so small, even when there is nothing else in that side pannel? It's hard to see everything.
I did recognise that the old input ui needed fixing, but I'm very unsure about this ui. I know what I'm doing and I can't figure it out.
Martin,
Jon:
As you know this topic has been raised again and again. The new input devices dialog is really unworkable. You keep saying you will do something about it, but so far I don't see much progress. And I sadly agree that in the current bzr - and assumedly in 0.48 - it is simply disfunctional. Here's a brief bug report:
System: Ubuntu 10.04, plain vanilla; wacom tablet.
Goal: to make pressure sensitivity work in all relevant tools (calligraphy, tweak, etc.)
System-installed 0.47: the old dialog is far from perfect; it still does not work out of the box; I have to open Input Devices, choose "Wacom Graphire", and change "Disabled" to "Screen". After that, everything works.
0.48 from current bzr: no amount of tweaking enables pressure. The checkbox "Use pressure-sensitive tablet" is on, but does not help. Choosing "Wacom Graphire" does nothing. The Hardware tab is extremely repetitive and confusing, and no amount of guideless tweaking there makes a slightest difference.
I'm really sorry that due to computer problems and other commitments I didn't pay as much attention to 0.48 release as I should have. But things need to be fixed ASAP. So, Jon, if you don't make believable progress in making this dialog more manageable, and most importantly _working_, I will revert it to the old one. I'm sorry to be blunt but this is really too old a problem to let it linger much more.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Martin Owens <doctormo@...400...> Date: Sun, Sep 12, 2010 at 2:12 PM Subject: [Inkscape-devel] Input Device UI To: inkscape-devel inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
Hey all,
I've just installed inkscape 0.48 from the nightly build (there is still no stable ppa) since 0.47 started crashing every time I pressed the stroke/fill dialog.
Now my presure sensitivity has gone and I was looking at the new dialog for input devices... I can't make heads nor tales of it.
What is it supposed to be letting me do? What's the difference between the configuration (which has a single checkbox and that's it) and the hardware tab? What is linking for? If the use pressure sensitivity checkbox is checked, then why doesn't it work? Is there anything else? If the testing area is for trying out all the inputs, why is it so confusing? All those little boxes? Where would pressure be shown? Why is the box so small, even when there is nothing else in that side pannel? It's hard to see everything.
I did recognise that the old input ui needed fixing, but I'm very unsure about this ui. I know what I'm doing and I can't figure it out.
Martin,
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Start uncovering the many advantages of virtual appliances and start using them to simplify application deployment and accelerate your shift to cloud computing http://p.sf.net/sfu/novell-sfdev2dev _______________________________________________ Inkscape-devel mailing list Inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-devel
On Sep 15, 2010, at 8:56 AM, bulia byak wrote:
Jon:
As you know this topic has been raised again and again. The new input devices dialog is really unworkable. You keep saying you will do something about it, but so far I don't see much progress. And I sadly agree that in the current bzr - and assumedly in 0.48 - it is simply disfunctional. Here's a brief bug report:
Well... several reports were made and fixed, I guess they didn't cover your issues.
We need to get the specific cases that fail called out so we can fix them.
Among the issues that *were* corrected was the older behavior where in order to turn on pressure sensitivity one would have to independently toggle several different controls in different settings panes *and* the main UI and then restart at the proper point to see things work.
So again, if you have specific issues, please enter bugs or list them out somewhere. Many other people had issues and all *reported* issues were corrected.
On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 11:00 PM, Jon Cruz <jon@...18...> wrote:
So again, if you have specific issues, please enter bugs or list them out somewhere.
So here are mine and Martin's issues, which to me look like the same issue. What additional information you need to fix it?
On Sep 15, 2010, at 8:50 PM, bulia byak wrote:
On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 11:00 PM, Jon Cruz <jon@...18...> wrote:
So again, if you have specific issues, please enter bugs or list them out somewhere.
So here are mine and Martin's issues, which to me look like the same issue. What additional information you need to fix it?
Things seem a bit vague. Explicit details might help. I can figure out a few things to enhance from Martin's comments though.
On the other hand, this bug shows some very interesting config and behavior: https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/624277 http://launchpadlibrarian.net/54403269/xinput-ink-vs-gimp.png
A minor factor that one shows is a minimalist theme that hides anything obviously manipulatable. Not good. Addressing that will probably go straight to discoverability.
What's more interesting is the complex listing there. It appears that either the user or SuSE did not get things right. "Stylus0" is being reported as a mouse when it should be a pen. "Wacom Graphire4 6x8" is being reported as a pen, but chances are it should be a cursor.
The zero on Stylus0, Eraser0 and Pad0 are also suspicious.
Details such as those can be quite useful.
On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 1:38 AM, Jon Cruz <jon@...18...> wrote:
http://launchpadlibrarian.net/54403269/xinput-ink-vs-gimp.png
That image was seriously revelatory! Only from it I figure out that the new dialog does in fact has a column of "disabled" values - for me it was completely obscured because the dialog appeared in a narrow sidebar, and I only saw the list of devices. So now we need to solve the following problems:
1. Make sure this column is always visible.
2. Make sure it is evident that the values in this column are clickable and selectable, not just texts.
3. Making sure this dialog is not normally needed _at all_: make Inkscape automatically choose the appropriate tablet-like device, for example the one with most axes, and enable it as Screen. This way 99% of users will never have to open the dialog.
4. Making sure the Hardware tab is less frightening - right now it looks like a workbench of a mad scientist. Do we need all this information at all? Can it change anything in the way Inkscape operates or is it just informational? If (some of) it can, it must be reworded and explained in Inkscape terms, not in techspeak.
On Thu, 2010-09-16 at 23:56 -0300, bulia byak wrote:
- Making sure this dialog is not normally needed _at all_: make
Inkscape automatically choose the appropriate tablet-like device, for example the one with most axes, and enable it as Screen. This way 99% of users will never have to open the dialog.
This is SO key to our new users. If obvious devices and functionality are detected, use it to the max (as expected). I think Wacom users will immediately win out, but with the users of other tablet brands (Genius seem to be common), we need to try harder if possible.
Cheers, Josh
On Thu, 2010-09-16 at 23:56 -0300, bulia byak wrote:
- Make sure this column is always visible.
It was certainly something I didn't see.
1b. Make sure that if you put a set of devices into a tree, that they are under items with labels and labels that make sense. I can'r see how the core pointer or logitect wheel mouse is related to a Tablet (what tablet?).
- Making sure this dialog is not normally needed _at all_: make
Inkscape automatically choose the appropriate tablet-like device, for example the one with most axes, and enable it as Screen. This way 99% of users will never have to open the dialog.
+1 million.
- Making sure the Hardware tab is less frightening - right now it
looks like a workbench of a mad scientist. Do we need all this information at all? Can it change anything in the way Inkscape operates or is it just informational? If (some of) it can, it must be reworded and explained in Inkscape terms, not in techspeak.
The UI needs to have some design. If you'd like me to take a look at it, I'd just need some scope on what needs to be done, what some of the use cases are etc. I can do some moc-ups and we can aim for a 0.49 solution.
Martin,
On Sep 16, 2010, at 7:56 PM, bulia byak wrote:
That image was seriously revelatory! Only from it I figure out that the new dialog does in fact has a column of "disabled" values - for me it was completely obscured because the dialog appeared in a narrow sidebar, and I only saw the list of devices
Just a minor note...
I confirmed that the current GTK on Ubuntu will hide parts of the dialog/panel, but others, including on OS X, force the window wide enough to keep all the contents visible.
participants (5)
-
bulia byak -
Jon Cruz -
Joshua A. Andler -
Joshua Facemyer -
Martin Owens