Okay,
I've committed some updates, which I think fix most of the minor issues.
-- Effects without GUIs work now -- The working directory for scripts is the same as the working directory for Inkscape instead of a temp directory. I don't think this fixes all the win32 issues -- but it is the same as before. -- Parameters don't have extra quotes -- Removed plugin code to the SVN history
--Ted
Thanks! But what about the "live preview" checkbox? I can't believe I am alone in finding this behavior intrusive and annoying (at least for some effects) unless I specifically turn it on.
On 7/3/07, Ted Gould <ted@...11...> wrote:
Okay,
I've committed some updates, which I think fix most of the minor issues.
-- Effects without GUIs work now -- The working directory for scripts is the same as the working directory for Inkscape instead of a temp directory. I don't think this fixes all the win32 issues -- but it is the same as before. -- Parameters don't have extra quotes -- Removed plugin code to the SVN history
--Ted
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bulia byak wrote:
Thanks! But what about the "live preview" checkbox? I can't believe I am alone in finding this behavior intrusive and annoying (at least for some effects) unless I specifically turn it on.
I don't find it too intrusive and annoying, but I think that out of respect for people with computers that lack the resources to update in a timely manner this is a must. L-systems and a few other effects would effectively be useless on those people's systems with only live-updating.
-Josh
bulia byak wrote:
Thanks! But what about the "live preview" checkbox? I can't believe I am alone in finding this behavior intrusive and annoying (at least for some effects) unless I specifically turn it on.
Well, I challenged whether this is required in a previous e-mail, and you didn't respond. So I assumed that you thought my logic was flawless :)
I guess my logic here is that I can't see a reason that you'd want to turn it off. If you're saying that it would be annoying, what do you mean by that? The screen update is distracting?
On Tue, 2007-07-03 at 09:28 -0700, Joshua A. Andler wrote:
I don't find it too intrusive and annoying, but I think that out of respect for people with computers that lack the resources to update in a timely manner this is a must. L-systems and a few other effects would effectively be useless on those people's systems with only live-updating.
Well, there isn't "only live-updating". What happens is that the live update will run. If you hit "OK" you'll get a "Working" dialog while the effect completes. In reality, it should make script extensions seem much faster to those with slow computers because the script gets started while the computer is waiting for the human. We should get at least a couple second head start if not more.
In a nutshell, I'm not really against having it be turned on and off, but I don't see a use case for turning it off. I think it'll just turn into UI clutter.
--Ted
On 7/3/07, Ted Gould <ted@...11...> wrote:
Well, I challenged whether this is required in a previous e-mail, and you didn't respond. So I assumed that you thought my logic was flawless :)
It's not about logic. It's about "feel" if you like, about perception and doing what is expected. If I have a dialog with several parameters, and you set them in turn, you are not interested in seeing the result after only one parameter is set. But once you set the first parameter, you see something changing on your canvas and you waste your time trying to figure out what happened. This is annoying and wasteful (although, of course, in another situation where I want to fine-tune the parameters, it's a huge time saver).
On Tue, 2007-07-03 at 13:34 -0400, bulia byak wrote:
It's not about logic. It's about "feel" if you like, about perception and doing what is expected. If I have a dialog with several parameters, and you set them in turn, you are not interested in seeing the result after only one parameter is set. But once you set the first parameter, you see something changing on your canvas and you waste your time trying to figure out what happened. This is annoying and wasteful (although, of course, in another situation where I want to fine-tune the parameters, it's a huge time saver).
So, if there was a status bar explaining what's going on?
--Ted
On 7/4/07, Ted Gould <ted@...11...> wrote:
On Tue, 2007-07-03 at 13:34 -0400, bulia byak wrote:
It's not about logic. It's about "feel" if you like, about perception and doing what is expected. If I have a dialog with several parameters, and you set them in turn, you are not interested in seeing the result after only one parameter is set. But once you set the first parameter, you see something changing on your canvas and you waste your time trying to figure out what happened. This is annoying and wasteful (although, of course, in another situation where I want to fine-tune the parameters, it's a huge time saver).
So, if there was a status bar explaining what's going on?
That is certainly useful and even necessary. But it does not solve the problem. It is a severe psychological setback to see something happening to your beloved document without your sanction that you cannot stop or prevent. This stirs up fears - What's going on? Will I need to undo this if I don't like it? Will I even be able to undo something I honestly didn't do? Remember that not all effects are easy to figure out - with some parameters, your selection may simply disappear or turn into something absolutely unrecognizable, or at least something difficult to match with the stated purpose of the effect. Even if your statusbar answers all these questions, it wastes my time to worry and think about all this.
When I first open an effect dialog, I focus my attention on it and I just don't want to be distracted until I have figured out the meaning of the controls and want to see them in action. That's when I check on the "Live preview" box (this concept is familiar to most users, I'm sure, if only because it's used in Photoshop) and start playing with it. Next time when I use this effect, I already know its controls, so it's OK that the Live preview will be on from the start. But it definitely must be off _by default_, and I hope I explained why.
On Wed, 2007-07-04 at 10:33 -0400, bulia byak wrote:
When I first open an effect dialog, I focus my attention on it and I just don't want to be distracted until I have figured out the meaning of the controls and want to see them in action. That's when I check on the "Live preview" box (this concept is familiar to most users, I'm sure, if only because it's used in Photoshop) and start playing with it. Next time when I use this effect, I already know its controls, so it's OK that the Live preview will be on from the start. But it definitely must be off _by default_, and I hope I explained why.
I would have to say that must have much more of an emotional attachment to your documents than I do :)
Another point to your side is that when adding the status, the check box really doesn't add that much more. Another 10 pixels that is likely to be otherwise wasted.
Now, about the "on by default." I guess, at least for me, I don't see any reason to turn it off. So I would want all effects to default to having the live effect enabled. I realize that first time users of Inkscape may be frustrated once, but I think they'd learn quickly to prefer having it on.
--Ted
Ted Gould wrote:
Now, about the "on by default." I guess, at least for me, I don't see any reason to turn it off. So I would want all effects to default to having the live effect enabled. I realize that first time users of Inkscape may be frustrated once, but I think they'd learn quickly to prefer having it on.
But in this case, why not follow Bulia's suggestion to turn it off by default but remember if it was last off or on when the effect is used again (or did I get him wrong there)? I don't know about other users but I for one completely agree with him about finding it annoying to be faced with the results of an effect I haven't yet been given a chance to study in some detail (or sometimes I want to see the original object for some reason). And the two examples he gives in a previous post show that there are situations where each of the two behaviours makes sense, so imho it definitely should be an option to have live previewing enabled (with it being disabled by default).
/Max
Ted Gould wrote:
On Tue, 2007-07-03 at 09:28 -0700, Joshua A. Andler wrote:
I don't find it too intrusive and annoying, but I think that out of respect for people with computers that lack the resources to update in a timely manner this is a must. L-systems and a few other effects would effectively be useless on those people's systems with only live-updating.
Well, there isn't "only live-updating". What happens is that the live update will run. If you hit "OK" you'll get a "Working" dialog while the effect completes. In reality, it should make script extensions seem much faster to those with slow computers because the script gets started while the computer is waiting for the human. We should get at least a couple second head start if not more.
In a nutshell, I'm not really against having it be turned on and off, but I don't see a use case for turning it off. I think it'll just turn into UI clutter.
Well, I have a test case for you. Please get out and dust off the machines we used at SCALE the past two years and test the effects on those. Those machines were painful to work with for standard use and I would be interested to know how smooth it feels. After all, we'll probably be using those boxes again next year, so it does make sense that they're tested.
For the record I had used autopackages to install on those machines. They can be obtained from http://inkscape.modevia.com/ap/?C=M;O=D If we're lucky, Aaron will cut a new one with the most recent changes so you can test. I don't think we need to clutter up those boxes with all the dev libraries and such.
You may also want to dist-upgrade to Feisty while you're at it (as we'll probably have issues with the "current" versions of GTK and Cairo)... or you could do what I'd do and dist-upgrade them to Gutsy. ;)
-Josh
On Tue, 2007-07-03 at 10:41 -0700, Joshua A. Andler wrote:
Well, I have a test case for you. Please get out and dust off the machines we used at SCALE the past two years and test the effects on those. Those machines were painful to work with for standard use and I would be interested to know how smooth it feels. After all, we'll probably be using those boxes again next year, so it does make sense that they're tested.
No!!! Those computers can only be used for SCALE ;)
I'll have to see if they run. Probably just as good to boot a live CD using QEMU though -- I imagine it'd be roughly as slow.
--Ted
participants (4)
-
bulia byak -
Joshua A. Andler -
Maximilian Albert -
Ted Gould