Re: 8 Bugs - 1.0beta1 (32d4812, 2019-09-19) (New User - Mac OS Catalina)
Hi folks, C Rogers, thanks for your reply.
Inkscape is a different program than Illustrator.
Of course. It should be better than Illustrator, and it’s got some great features already. If you thought that was what I expected, with respect, your assumption was mistaken.
(1) Surprise Quit
This is one thing that's just plain different about Inkscape….
Nope. It’s pretty normal for some operating systems, such as windows, where a window is an application. Not so on MacOS, where a window is (most times) merely a document within the application.
It may be that you have not used MacOS much. Try opening any application on MacOS. Close the window - guess what? You have not closed the application. Not even with MS software. Why? Because to do so is a bug on MacOS. There’s nothing unique about Inkscape - it’s just either arrogance or laziness.
Okay, so you’ve chosen to use a document window as your application root, and you don’t want to refactor your code to suit the UI guidelines of different OS - so, there is a is a 'lazy' way available to you - look at eg, GarageBand - which is a window-centred application. It starts, either with the last project, or it gives you a ‘choose a project to open/create new) window. You could do that. Not doing that is breaking your port to MacOS. Otherwise, it's a bug.
(2) Location of preferences menu item.
- BUG - Preferences is in the Edit menu rather than in the ‘Inkscape’ menu
Inkscape is cross platform, which means that there may or may not be an Inkscape menu at all, which is a MacOS convention
Again, this is laziness or arrogance, and it’s a bug. You telling me that Adobe software isn’t cross platform? Even if there is no ‘Inkscape Menu’, there’s the File menu - which is where I look for preferences. Why? Because “File” is about Files - ie, documents, - so yes, project settings, project preferences, they belong under File. Apple subsequently decided (imo correctly) that Application level preferences should be under the application. Again, go into any MacOS application that has and edit menu - and look to see what is there. ‘Preferences' isn’t one of them. It’s a bug.
You may think this is merely my opinion. What you are forgetting is that there is a uniform approach to application user interface on MacOS. Every single time you make a decision to break the UX guidelines, you increase the complexity of your application, and you lose thousands - even hundreds of thousands - of potential users; you may think it’s an opinion of mine - but go look at the available UX / UI guidelines published by Apple (and Xerox before them), along with the absolutely vast budget they put into it, in order to make MacOS ‘easy’.
So if you want a niche geek product, ignore what I say or just decide it’s a WONT-FIX / NOT-A-BUG. I will still use it. But I know plenty of people who will just say ‘I tried it, and it didn’t work’.
Lastly, I was asked by your own documentation, to report bugs to inkscape-dev, which is what I did. If you now want me to post bugs on https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/issues https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/issues, the answer is sorry, bud., I did what was asked of me.
I truly would like to see Inkscape become a killer app on Mac OS. But if your hearts are not into it, and you just want to keep it on Linux, fine - I’m all for free community driven software on community driven machines - it’s what I get paid to do, which is super cool. On the other hand, if you are committed to making Inkscape truly cross-platform, you have to make it conform to those platform’s own guidelines and conventions, otherwise it’s just a bad port for niche geeks like me.
-B.
if your hearts are not into it
Heart is the key. The project has contributors, not dictators. Ubuntu has a dictator for life, python had until recently a dictator. Projects where there's a man (it's always a man) you can demand make a decision one way of another for a particular issue.
Inkscape doesn't have that. Just people, doing things. Almost at random, but with consensus.
I personally hate Apple (and I mean revulsion when I see their products, with lip curling, stomach turning yuk) but I still spent six months, sending recruitment messages, cultivating the new Mac developers team, offering guidance, doing the outreach. Because you know, we care about the project more than our arrogance.
I think many of the contributors here have proven themselves to be amazing volunteers, selfless, dedicated, responsible and conscientious. Individuals who are able to meet, talk out problems and grapple with heated differences of opinion. Their service to the greater good is cast iron and I would back them to the last mailing list byte based on their reputation as contributors to this project.
What I'm trying to say is: I reject utterly even the symbolic comparison that contributors are lazy or arrogant. This kind of inflammatory language is unhelpful for the project and gets in the way of your future friendships and contributions in the project.
And I do mean that. I'm keenly interested in the ways you will be able to help the project grow and improve, to be better on Mac or better in general or better on social media. There's so much work to do and your help is welcome and we give permissions out liberally to all, even non technical contributions are considered a serious committent to the project. The collective energy is based on people like yourself and the relationships we all form with all the other contributors, that's what pushes the project forwards.
I hope to see your around.
Best Regards, Martin Owens Inkscape Website Administrator
+1000
On Sun, Nov 17, 2019 at 11:34 PM Martin Owens doctormo@gmail.com wrote:
if your hearts are not into it
Heart is the key. The project has contributors, not dictators. Ubuntu has a dictator for life, python had until recently a dictator. Projects where there's a man (it's always a man) you can demand make a decision one way of another for a particular issue.
Inkscape doesn't have that. Just people, doing things. Almost at random, but with consensus.
I personally hate Apple (and I mean revulsion when I see their products, with lip curling, stomach turning yuk) but I still spent six months, sending recruitment messages, cultivating the new Mac developers team, offering guidance, doing the outreach. Because you know, we care about the project more than our arrogance.
I think many of the contributors here have proven themselves to be amazing volunteers, selfless, dedicated, responsible and conscientious. Individuals who are able to meet, talk out problems and grapple with heated differences of opinion. Their service to the greater good is cast iron and I would back them to the last mailing list byte based on their reputation as contributors to this project.
What I'm trying to say is: I reject utterly even the symbolic comparison that contributors are lazy or arrogant. This kind of inflammatory language is unhelpful for the project and gets in the way of your future friendships and contributions in the project.
And I do mean that. I'm keenly interested in the ways you will be able to help the project grow and improve, to be better on Mac or better in general or better on social media. There's so much work to do and your help is welcome and we give permissions out liberally to all, even non technical contributions are considered a serious committent to the project. The collective energy is based on people like yourself and the relationships we all form with all the other contributors, that's what pushes the project forwards.
I hope to see your around.
Best Regards, Martin Owens Inkscape Website Administrator _______________________________________________ Inkscape Devel mailing list -- inkscape-devel@lists.inkscape.org To unsubscribe send an email to inkscape-devel-leave@lists.inkscape.org
Sorry, I'm feeling too lazy and arrogant to answer any of this. Anyone else want to try, be my guest. ;)
Good luck with it. -C
On Sun, Nov 17, 2019 at 10:07 PM Ben Griffin ben@redsnapper.net wrote:
Hi folks, C Rogers, thanks for your reply.
Inkscape is a different program than Illustrator.
Of course. It should be better than Illustrator, and it’s got some great features already. If you thought that was what I expected, with respect, your assumption was mistaken.
(1) Surprise Quit
This is one thing that's just plain different about Inkscape….
Nope. It’s pretty normal for some operating systems, such as windows, where a window is an application. Not so on MacOS, where a window is (most times) merely a document within the application.
It may be that you have not used MacOS much. Try opening any application on MacOS. Close the window - guess what? You have not closed the application. Not even with MS software. Why? Because to do so is a bug on MacOS. There’s nothing unique about Inkscape - it’s just either arrogance or laziness.
Okay, so you’ve chosen to use a document window as your application root, and you don’t want to refactor your code to suit the UI guidelines of different OS - so, there is a is a 'lazy' way available to you - look at eg, GarageBand - which is a window-centred application. It starts, either with the last project, or it gives you a ‘choose a project to open/create new) window. You could do that. Not doing that is breaking your port to MacOS. Otherwise, it's a bug.
(2) Location of preferences menu item.
- BUG - Preferences is in the Edit menu rather than in the ‘Inkscape’
menu
Inkscape is cross platform, which means that there may or may not be an Inkscape menu at all, which is a MacOS convention
Again, this is laziness or arrogance, and it’s a bug. You telling me that Adobe software isn’t cross platform? Even if there is no ‘Inkscape Menu’, there’s the File menu - which is where I look for preferences. Why? Because “File” is about Files - ie, documents, - so yes, project settings, project preferences, they belong under File. Apple subsequently decided (imo correctly) that Application level preferences should be under the application. Again, go into any MacOS application that has and edit menu - and look to see what is there. ‘Preferences' isn’t one of them. It’s a bug.
You may think this is merely my opinion. What you are forgetting is that there is a uniform approach to application user interface on MacOS. Every single time you make a decision to break the UX guidelines, you increase the complexity of your application, and you lose thousands - even hundreds of thousands - of potential users; you may think it’s an opinion of mine - but go look at the available UX / UI guidelines published by Apple (and Xerox before them), along with the absolutely vast budget they put into it, in order to make MacOS ‘easy’.
So if you want a niche geek product, ignore what I say or just decide it’s a WONT-FIX / NOT-A-BUG. I will still use it. But I know plenty of people who will just say ‘I tried it, and it didn’t work’.
Lastly, I was asked by your own documentation, to report bugs to inkscape-dev, which is what I did. If you now want me to post bugs on https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/issues, the answer is sorry, bud., I did what was asked of me.
I truly would like to see Inkscape become a killer app on Mac OS. But if your hearts are not into it, and you just want to keep it on Linux, fine - I’m all for free community driven software on community driven machines - it’s what I get paid to do, which is super cool. On the other hand, if you are committed to making Inkscape truly cross-platform, you have to make it conform to those platform’s own guidelines and conventions, otherwise it’s just a bad port for niche geeks like me.
-B.
Inkscape Devel mailing list -- inkscape-devel@lists.inkscape.org To unsubscribe send an email to inkscape-devel-leave@lists.inkscape.org
Hhmm, I thought the mailing lists were down. Let's see if this goes through. I just have a couple of questions/comments.
Inkscape is a different program than Illustrator.
Of course. It should be better than Illustrator, and it’s got some great features already. If you thought that was what I expected, with respect, your assumption was mistaken.
I wanted to ask you to clarify that. I don't think I quite follow what you meant. You expected Inkscape would be a better program than Illustrator? Or you didn't expect it to be better? Or you didn't expect it would be different? Or?
Close the window - guess what? You have not closed the application.
GIMP went to having documents separate from the program with....well, it was the last upgrade that I got anyway. It drives me crazy. When I click close, I want close. I don't want to have to close a few different things to close a program. I don't think I have any other program (on Windows currently) like that. Even Libre Office Writer (which has multiple pages) closes with 1 click.
Of course, there is a feature request for Inkscape to handle multiple pages (in a single document). Who knows, whenever that is realized, maybe Inkscape will work like that too?
Lastly, I was asked by your own documentation, to report bugs to inkscape-dev, which is what I did.
If you could tell us in which documentation you found that, we could fix it. I haven't seen that myself.
On the
other hand, if you are committed to making Inkscape truly cross-platform, you have to make it conform to those platform’s own guidelines and conventions, otherwise it’s just a bad port for niche geeks like me.
At this point, it seems like we're lucky to have Mac developers at all. A couple of Inkscape's recent versions did not even have an upgrade for Macs. Some 10 years ago, I heard that Windows developers were hard to find. I don't know about all open source software, but with Inkscape, at least as long as I've been involved, it's been kind of "catch as catch can" (to use an old American expression).
All best, brynn
On 11/17/2019 3:07 PM, Ben Griffin wrote:
Hi folks, C Rogers, thanks for your reply.
Inkscape is a different program than Illustrator.
Of course. It should be better than Illustrator, and it’s got some great features already. If you thought that was what I expected, with respect, your assumption was mistaken.
(1) Surprise QuitThis is one thing that's just plain different about Inkscape….
Nope. It’s pretty normal for some operating systems, such as windows, where a window is an application. Not so on MacOS, where a window is (most times) merely a document within the application.
It may be that you have not used MacOS much. Try opening any application on MacOS. Close the window - guess what? You have not closed the application. Not even with MS software. Why? Because to do so is a bug on MacOS. There’s nothing unique about Inkscape - it’s just either arrogance or laziness.
Okay, so you’ve chosen to use a document window as your application root, and you don’t want to refactor your code to suit the UI guidelines of different OS - so, there is a is a 'lazy' way available to you - look at eg, GarageBand - which is a window-centred application. It starts, either with the last project, or it gives you a ‘choose a project to open/create new) window. You could do that. Not doing that is breaking your port to MacOS. Otherwise, it's a bug.
(2) Location of preferences menu item. 1) BUG - Preferences is in the Edit menu rather than in the ‘Inkscape’ menuInkscape is cross platform, which means that there may or may not be an Inkscape menu at all, which is a MacOS convention
Again, this is laziness or arrogance, and it’s a bug. You telling me that Adobe software isn’t cross platform? Even if there is no ‘Inkscape Menu’, there’s the File menu - which is where I look for preferences. Why? Because “File” is about Files - ie, documents, - so yes, project settings, project preferences, they belong under File. Apple subsequently decided (imo correctly) that Application level preferences should be under the application. Again, go into any MacOS application that has and edit menu - and look to see what is there. ‘Preferences' isn’t one of them. It’s a bug.
You may think this is merely my opinion. What you are forgetting is that there is a uniform approach to application user interface on MacOS. Every single time you make a decision to break the UX guidelines, you increase the complexity of your application, and you lose thousands - even hundreds of thousands - of potential users; you may think it’s an opinion of mine - but go look at the available UX / UI guidelines published by Apple (and Xerox before them), along with the absolutely vast budget they put into it, in order to make MacOS ‘easy’.
So if you want a niche geek product, ignore what I say or just decide it’s a WONT-FIX / NOT-A-BUG. I will still use it. But I know plenty of people who will just say ‘I tried it, and it didn’t work’.
Lastly, I was asked by your own documentation, to report bugs to inkscape-dev, which is what I did. If you now want me to post bugs on https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/issues, the answer is sorry, bud., I did what was asked of me.
I truly would like to see Inkscape become a killer app on Mac OS. But if your hearts are not into it, and you just want to keep it on Linux, fine - I’m all for free community driven software on community driven machines - it’s what I get paid to do, which is super cool. On the other hand, if you are committed to making Inkscape truly cross-platform, you have to make it conform to those platform’s own guidelines and conventions, otherwise it’s just a bad port for niche geeks like me.
-B.
Inkscape Devel mailing list -- inkscape-devel@lists.inkscape.org To unsubscribe send an email to inkscape-devel-leave@lists.inkscape.org
On Nov 17, 2019, at 4:03 PM, brynn brynn@frii.com wrote:
GIMP went to having documents separate from the program with....well, it was the last upgrade that I got anyway. It drives me crazy. When I click close, I want close. I don't want to have to close a few different things to close a program. I don't think I have any other program (on Windows currently) like that. Even Libre Office Writer (which has multiple pages) closes with 1 click.
This is a platform-specific difference in expectations. It drives the Mac users equally crazy when a program quits unexpectedly: It is not substantially different from Inkscape hard-crashing when you close a document.
Mac applications almost universally stay open when the last document is closed. (There is normally a "Close" function to close a document, but also a separate "Quit" function to close all open windows and exit the application. This type of behavior is common, but not universal, on Windows as well.)
The two other applications that you name, GIMP and Libre Office, both handle this correctly (and stay open when you close the last document), as did Inkscape in versions prior to 1.0.
I've opened an issue for it: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inbox/issues/1193
I'm not against adding this, I just wonder how to do it "right". Because all those software projects mentioned follow the different convention of having one main container window, and each project is a sub-window of sorts in the main window. When you close a sub window, the application stays open. If however you close the window using the window close controls, it will in fact close the whole applications, sometimes with warnings that you will be closing multiple documents by doing this. Presently, Inkscape only has window controls, and calls up a new main window for every new file opened. So there are two potential "fixes" for this: 1. Inkscape opens a new document when an edited document is closed - this is easy, but annoying if you don't want a new document. This already happens when ctrl/cmd+w, but getting Inkscape to not close when you use the window close buttons (which isn't great UX imho) may be more of a problem. 2. Inkscape needs to become a sub-window style UI where documents are contained in it, instead of floating around with their own toolsets. Although I typically like this style better, it's a lot more work, and our resources are limited as of now. Often when embarking on a project like this, we are sacrificing time working on other big ticket items. So it comes down to finding someone with loads of time to fix for what I'd consider a relatively minor annoyance.
It's neither lazy, nor arrogant, it's just limited resources, and demands on our dedicated group of awesome developers.
My 2p. -C
On Mon, Nov 18, 2019 at 12:30 AM Windell H. Oskay < windell@evilmadscientist.com> wrote:
On Nov 17, 2019, at 4:03 PM, brynn brynn@frii.com wrote:
GIMP went to having documents separate from the program with....well, it
was the last upgrade that I got anyway. It drives me crazy. When I click close, I want close. I don't want to have to close a few different things to close a program. I don't think I have any other program (on Windows currently) like that. Even Libre Office Writer (which has multiple pages) closes with 1 click.
This is a platform-specific difference in expectations. It drives the Mac users equally crazy when a program quits unexpectedly: It is not substantially different from Inkscape hard-crashing when you close a document.
Mac applications almost universally stay open when the last document is closed. (There is normally a "Close" function to close a document, but also a separate "Quit" function to close all open windows and exit the application. This type of behavior is common, but not universal, on Windows as well.)
The two other applications that you name, GIMP and Libre Office, both handle this correctly (and stay open when you close the last document), as did Inkscape in versions prior to 1.0.
I've opened an issue for it: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inbox/issues/1193 _______________________________________________ Inkscape Devel mailing list -- inkscape-devel@lists.inkscape.org To unsubscribe send an email to inkscape-devel-leave@lists.inkscape.org
On Nov 18, 2019, at 2:23 AM, C R cajhne@gmail.com wrote:
[...]Because all those software projects mentioned follow the different convention of having one main container window, and each project is a sub-window of sorts in the main window.
That is not true.
We are talking about an extremely small number of projects here: GIMP, Libre Office, and Inkscape. Here is how they each behave on a Mac:
GIMP: Uses a container window, that stays open when you close the last document. (OK!)
Libre Office: Does not use a container window. Closing the document leaves no windows open, just the menu bar is open. (This is the most common behavior on a Mac.)
Inkscape (<1.0): Does not use a container window. Closing the last document opens a new empty document. (OK!)
Inkscape (1.0): Does not use a container window. Closing the last document quits the program (Not OK!)
Presently, Inkscape only has window controls, and calls up a new main window for every new file opened. So there are two potential "fixes" for this:
- Inkscape opens a new document when an edited document is closed -[...]
- Inkscape needs to become a sub-window style UI where documents are contained in it, [...] we are sacrificing time working on other big ticket items.
Even amongst the few examples that brynn brought up here, those are not the only two options. And, no one (at least in this discussion) is asking for a major rewrite.
This is a relatively minor bug; it should be acknowledged and given proper weight as a minor but legitimate UI concern.
-Windell
On Mon, 2019-11-18 at 11:10 -0800, Windell H. Oskay wrote:
This is a relatively minor bug; it should be acknowledged and given proper weight as a minor but legitimate UI concern.
Does it have an issue number?
Martin,
[...]Because all those software projects mentioned follow the different convention of having one main container window, and each project is a sub-window of sorts in the main window.
That is not true.
Actually it is, except Libre Office. I was thinking of Scribus. My apologies. Point is, there are many different ways to handle the windowing, and not all are great UX, even on MacOS. Even from your examples below, that's a lot of different was to handle (or mishandle). Libre Office is a great example of how terrible UX can be on Mac. No document window open and just a bar at the top? That's just awful UX imho. I much prefer the container-window apps, which I think is what OP wanted (but would take a major re-write).
GIMP: Uses a container window, that stays open when you close the last document. (OK!)
But you don't use the window controls to close the last document, do you? You close the tab, it has it's own control. Inkscape doesn't have that. That's my point.
Libre Office: Does not use a container window. Closing the document leaves no windows open, just the menu bar is open. (This is the most common behavior on a Mac.)
Terrible UX. Fight me. lol But whatever. Maybe this is what Mac users want? Maybe that's not too much of a hassle, I say give it to them. :)
Inkscape (<1.0): Does not use a container window. Closing the last document opens a new empty document. (OK!)
Yea, that was the first of my examples for how to change it that's the least amount of work, I'd think. Also, we've established that it doesn't use a container window, so I'm not sure why this is mentioned here.
Inkscape (1.0): Does not use a container window. Closing the last document quits the program (Not OK!)
Fair enough. I already said previously that the (OK!) version above was fine, and was the least amount of work.
Presently, Inkscape only has window controls, and calls up a new main
window for every new file opened. So there are two potential "fixes" for this:
- Inkscape opens a new document when an edited document is closed -[...]
- Inkscape needs to become a sub-window style UI where documents are
contained in it, [...] we are sacrificing time working on other big ticket items.
Even amongst the few examples that brynn brought up here, those are not the only two options. And, no one (at least in this discussion) is asking for a major rewrite.
Good, because it was very much sounding like it. The OP did mention Adobe products, and said they all work that same way, so why doesn't Inkscape? Well Inkscape doesn't use a container window for starters. That's not a small difference. That's a huge difference in UI, and would require a major re-write. So to solve the problem in that particular way would take a major re-write.
This is a relatively minor bug; it should be acknowledged and given proper weight as a minor but legitimate UI concern.
I have no problem with it being addressed, as I said before, and we agree it's a minor bug. the OP thinks it's a major bug, but well whatever. :) It depends on how the OP wants it to be addressed whether it's a lot of work or not, and since they flat out refused to file bug reports in gitlab because (I guess) they read in our documentation somewhere they could just type out a list to the dev mailing list, and we'd fix it right away. Well, *that's* a bug imho. We should find out where it says that and correct it with proper links to how users should fill out bug reports so we can address them properly.
Also, I don't get the attitude "you're all just lazy" and then refusing to fill out a bug report so we can action it. Inkscape development runs on the motivation of volunteers. There was very little in the first reply which would motivate anyone to take the reigns on it to be honest. If they were nicer, I'd probably have helped them fill it out.
Someone want to add an issue for it on behalf of the OP, then I'll upvote it. -C
-Windell _______________________________________________ Inkscape Devel mailing list -- inkscape-devel@lists.inkscape.org To unsubscribe send an email to inkscape-devel-leave@lists.inkscape.org
On Nov 18, 2019, at 2:58 PM, C R cajhne@gmail.com wrote:
No document window open and just a bar at the top? That's just awful UX imho.
Terrible UX. Fight me. lol
You are I are entitled to opinions about whether or not it's a good UX, but that *is* the standard of how Mac applications have worked since 1984.
Putting that on Ben, or me, is not appropriate. (Asking for a fight, even jokingly, even less so.)
Also, I don't get the attitude "you're all just lazy" and then refusing to fill out a bug report so we can action it.
I don't like it either, but I think that I do understand where it's coming from. We, the Inkscape community, have a bad habit of telling users to report or contribute something one way, and then when they do exactly as we've asked, we ask them to do it a different way.*
That exact same thing has happened to me several times, and it can be *extremely* frustrating, especially for someone new in a community. People lash out when they're frustrated.
Someone want to add an issue for it on behalf of the OP, then I'll upvote it.
I already did: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inbox/issues/1193 Your upvote would be appreciated.
Now-- For everyone's sake: Let's please move any further discussion of this particular UX issue _there_ and off this mailing list.
*I'm totally up for discussions about how to be genuinely more welcoming to new contributors.
On Tue, 19 Nov 2019, 00:36 Windell H. Oskay, windell@evilmadscientist.com wrote:
On Nov 18, 2019, at 2:58 PM, C R cajhne@gmail.com wrote:
No document window open and just a bar at the top? That's just awful UX
imho.
Terrible UX. Fight me. lol
You are I are entitled to opinions about whether or not it's a good UX, but that *is* the standard of how Mac applications have worked since 1984.
Yes, and because its old does not mean that is good. It roundly violates Apple's own current UX documents. But whatever. I see this is a sore spot, so I'll leave it alone.
Putting that on Ben, or me, is not appropriate. (Asking for a fight, even jokingly, even less so.)
One of the perils of talking with me is the occasional joke. I'm not discussing anything with Ben at this point. To be clear, I only discuss when the conversation is friendly and constructive. If it's not, I'll have a bit of a laugh and move on to more satisfying activities (with Inkscape there is always so much to do).
Also, I don't get the attitude "you're all just lazy" and then refusing
to fill out a bug report so we can action it.
I don't like it either, but I think that I do understand where it's coming from. We, the Inkscape community, have a bad habit of telling users to report or contribute something one way, and then when they do exactly as we've asked, we ask them to do it a different way.*
That's why I said we should fix it if that's the case. It's a bug to tell the users to just report a laundry list to the dev mailing list. Frustrating for everyone. It's not a "habit" it's a bug. There is less fixing possible with language like "lazy and arrogant". I'm not giving anyone a pass on that. I don't care how mildly annoyed they are, there's no good reason for it. ;)
That exact same thing has happened to me several times, and it can be
*extremely* frustrating, especially for someone new in a community. People lash out when they're frustrated.
We are volunteers trying our best to help. Don't lash out at us. It's demotivating and frustrating when everyone - every single one of us works so hard to improve Inkscape. It wins no friends, adds no features, and loses credibility of the person in the community. If we need to spell that out better in our documentation, I'm all for it.
Someone want to add an issue for it on behalf of the OP, then I'll
upvote it.
I already did: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inbox/issues/1193 Your upvote would be appreciated.
Done! :)
Now-- For everyone's sake: Let's please move any further discussion of this
particular UX issue _there_ and off this mailing list.
*I'm totally up for discussions about how to be genuinely more welcoming to new contributors.
I agree. All new UX discussion there now that it exists.
Re: New contributors - I don't want people to think it's okay to call our developers names, or fling irrational criticism at all the hard work that has already gone into Inkscape. It's really not okay. Doc made that clear enough though so I'll just refer to the wisdom he offered earlier in the thread.
My 2p. -C
_______________________________________________
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On Nov 19, 2019, at 2:45 AM, C R cajhne@gmail.com wrote:
It roundly violates Apple's own current UX documents. But whatever. I see this is a sore spot, so I'll leave it alone.
If you have a factual citation, please enter it at the issue report, and let's discuss it.
We are volunteers trying our best to help.
Yes, we are. I'm one of those volunteers doing my best to help.
It roundly violates Apple's own current UX documents. But whatever. I see this is a sore spot, so I'll leave it alone.
If you have a factual citation, please enter it at the issue report, and let's discuss it.
Happy to discuss this with you offlist - it's irrelevant to the project and the issue whether Apple does or does not follow it's own HIG.
We are volunteers trying our best to help.
Yes, we are. I'm one of those volunteers doing my best to help.
And you are succeeding.
Because you took time to fill out the bug report, the issue will not just die, or wait around for someone with a kinder more cooperative attitude to point it out.
That's why I'm willing to discuss it with you for the sake of our MacOS users and not just return to the many many other things that require attention.
I think you should feel good about that. Keep it up.
-C
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I've been informed offlist that the previous email sounds a bit sarcastic, when I meant it with sincerity.
So I'd like to clarify: It's my view that we are all on the same side, wanting to help Inkscape users, and the project as a whole. I commend all efforts to do that (for whatever that's worth to anyone). :)
That at least was my intent, and I apologise if my words did not convey the correct tone.
Words in letters in words.
-C
On Tue, 19 Nov 2019, 22:25 C R, cajhne@gmail.com wrote:
It roundly violates Apple's own current UX documents. But whatever. I see this is a sore spot, so I'll leave it alone.
If you have a factual citation, please enter it at the issue report, and let's discuss it.
Happy to discuss this with you offlist - it's irrelevant to the project and the issue whether Apple does or does not follow it's own HIG.
We are volunteers trying our best to help.
Yes, we are. I'm one of those volunteers doing my best to help.
And you are succeeding.
Because you took time to fill out the bug report, the issue will not just die, or wait around for someone with a kinder more cooperative attitude to point it out.
That's why I'm willing to discuss it with you for the sake of our MacOS users and not just return to the many many other things that require attention.
I think you should feel good about that. Keep it up.
-C
Inkscape Devel mailing list -- inkscape-devel@lists.inkscape.org To unsubscribe send an email to inkscape-devel-leave@lists.inkscape.org
Hi folks,
Before I say anything more, I want to apologise if I upset any of you with the 'arrogance or laziness' phrase; it is a phrase I use on myself when I respond negatively in response to some naive end-user pointing out an issue which I don't really want to deal with - either because (a) I don't relate to it as being a bug ('arrogance') - mainly stemming from either ignorance of the issue, or my own conviction regarding how something 'should be'. (b) I haven't got the time to do it ('laziness') - often due to lack of resources, or a different consideration of priorities.
Of course, the words we use towards ourselves can sound completely out of place when used out of context, and this was one of those times. Mea Culpa - my sole (really weak) excuse is that I have been busy (emotionally and physically) burying a close friend who recently passed away from a sudden and devastating cancer, and I am not looking for sympathy here. On my side I was lazy not to post my bugs. I will register onto gitlab and I will also post bugs there in future.
What I have been given by yourselves is a window of insight into the dev group behind Inkscape, and wow - you have a really healthy relationship as a group. I'm not being ironic: You are all able to discuss these things without groupthink, while contributing with both conviction but also flexibility. I'm impressed. Unless my world changes dramatically, I doubt I will have any time to tool up to be able to contribute significantly to the Inkscape project - but I am encouraged.
Your contributions and discussion arising from my post has been thought-provoking. It got me thinking (yet again) all about what a bug is in the first place, and this is all going to be IMO, anyhow...
In many ways, as developers we often find ourselves dealing with language bugs - stuff that won't compile, weird crashes, and memory leaks (even in C++17, but wow I'm so glad that C++ is beginning to protect memory management); I guess many of you has been around long enough to remember the days when we didn't have static analysis or even IDEs; (that's enough reminiscing Ben). But for the user, any form of unexpected behaviour is a bug - and this 'unexpected behaviour' is exactly what we have designed. It's at these times that it can be seriously difficult to accept our design as a bug. I have argued - way beyond my own investment in it - against calling some user issue a bug, because I feel that both the users and the other project stakeholders don't understand the elegance, beauty - fuckit - ART behind the code that I deliver.
So again, I'm really sorry if I ruffled feathers. I believe I can empathise.
For the concrete case: maybe adding a 'first' somewhere into that text would already be enough to clarify that discussion is in *some* cases recommended *before* making a report / feature request? Ben, what do you think? Would that have helped to not be surprised by the request to report your findings after discussing them?
I was thinking a lot about Maren's comments (the above, and others) re. bug reporting: Maybe it's best to have a one-stop shop for all issues, regardless of whether or not the dev. community considers it a bug. I don't know if any of you ever worked on projects like firefox, but they have upwards of 15 million reports on Bugzilla now; it does mean that more time would be needed to de-duplicate / cross-reference, and so on - but you probably have to do that already anyhow. There are challenges with bug report systems - one of them being that we really do need to get bug reports (and converting them into a digestible prioritised task, knowing that we are going to be able to reproduce the problem is always a challenge), but asking a user to sign up to post a bug report is often an obstacle to the user. The user is normally going to be a pissed off when the bug occurs - especially if there's been a crash without recoverable work...
It also pains it for me to say, but a quick poll with the team here suggests that I am one of very few who -ever- posts bug reports to 3rd party software. My family didn't even know it 'was a thing you could do', so bug reports are really valuable - after all, with community-oriented software, the users are often going to be your alpha/beta testers, and you want to make it as comfortable as possible to report their issues.
I know we get this sort of thing of wanting to bug-bash and clear them all, and sometimes when there's lots of them, the last thing we want is to be dumped with a whole load more - but maybe it's our attitude to bug reports that need to change (I really am talking about me here). I have found it really demoralising when nobody reports any bugs at all!
Remember the godawful "Are you sure you want to quit?" alerts that plagued applications for a couple of decades or more? Maybe, and while it is in development, Inkscape could offer an optional response form... something like:
It is our ambition to make Inkscape as easy and as intuitive as possible for you to use; as it is a community-developed application, we would really like to hear about your experience today. If there was anything about your experience in this session that you feel could be improved upon, could you describe it so that we can consider it in future releases:
[Submit Feedback] [Not this time] [Exit and don't show this form again]
It's just a thought.
On #1193 (thanks guys) and the other UI/UX issues, I would suggest thinking of using preferences for the variation of types of behaviour, defaulting to OS Conventions - this allows for those who migrate across OS to get the 'same experience' - which I see as valid, as well as providing the user expectations of single OS users (which I also see as valid). I really have no skills with GTK+, but I would have thought that the MacOS expectation could be managed with an invisible/hidden window, (which would mean adding a visibility attribute to a document class somewhere, I guess). Much that it is counter-intuitive to non MacOS users, windowless 'menubar+dock' presence is the norm for most mac users.
..and now I'm being called over to fix some bugs...
The best to you all. -Ben
Well said. Sorry for your loss. You may not be looking for sympathy but you've certainly got it from me.
Thanks for eloquently clearing up the miscommunication. That means a lot to all of us, and it's something people so rarely do in online communications. Can tell already you're one of us. :)
When you have time if you want to check out these issues and add your comments, we can come to a good solution for our MacOS folks. https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inbox/issues/1193
I'm adding some of the solutions proposed by example from this email to help the process along. :)
Take care. -C
On Wed, 20 Nov 2019, 09:01 Ben Griffin, ben@redsnapper.net wrote:
Hi folks,
Before I say anything more, I want to apologise if I upset any of you with the 'arrogance or laziness' phrase; it is a phrase I use on myself when I respond negatively in response to some naive end-user pointing out an issue which I don't really want to deal with - either because (a) I don't relate to it as being a bug ('arrogance') - mainly stemming from either ignorance of the issue, or my own conviction regarding how something 'should be'. (b) I haven't got the time to do it ('laziness') - often due to lack of resources, or a different consideration of priorities.
Of course, the words we use towards ourselves can sound completely out of place when used out of context, and this was one of those times. Mea Culpa - my sole (really weak) excuse is that I have been busy (emotionally and physically) burying a close friend who recently passed away from a sudden and devastating cancer, and I am not looking for sympathy here. On my side I was lazy not to post my bugs. I will register onto gitlab and I will also post bugs there in future.
What I have been given by yourselves is a window of insight into the dev group behind Inkscape, and wow - you have a really healthy relationship as a group. I'm not being ironic: You are all able to discuss these things without groupthink, while contributing with both conviction but also flexibility. I'm impressed. Unless my world changes dramatically, I doubt I will have any time to tool up to be able to contribute significantly to the Inkscape project - but I am encouraged.
Your contributions and discussion arising from my post has been thought-provoking. It got me thinking (yet again) all about what a bug is in the first place, and this is all going to be IMO, anyhow...
In many ways, as developers we often find ourselves dealing with language bugs - stuff that won't compile, weird crashes, and memory leaks (even in C++17, but wow I'm so glad that C++ is beginning to protect memory management); I guess many of you has been around long enough to remember the days when we didn't have static analysis or even IDEs; (that's enough reminiscing Ben). But for the user, any form of unexpected behaviour is a bug - and this 'unexpected behaviour' is exactly what we have designed. It's at these times that it can be seriously difficult to accept our design as a bug. I have argued - way beyond my own investment in it - against calling some user issue a bug, because I feel that both the users and the other project stakeholders don't understand the elegance, beauty - fuckit - ART behind the code that I deliver.
So again, I'm really sorry if I ruffled feathers. I believe I can empathise.
For the concrete case: maybe adding a 'first' somewhere into that text would already be enough to clarify that discussion is in *some* cases recommended *before* making a report / feature request?
Ben, what do you think? Would that have helped to not be surprised by the request to report your findings after discussing them?
I was thinking a lot about Maren's comments (the above, and others) re. bug reporting: Maybe it's best to have a one-stop shop for all issues, regardless of whether or not the dev. community considers it a bug. I don't know if any of you ever worked on projects like firefox, but they have upwards of 15 million reports on Bugzilla now; it does mean that more time would be needed to de-duplicate / cross-reference, and so on - but you probably have to do that already anyhow. There are challenges with bug report systems - one of them being that we really do need to get bug reports (and converting them into a digestible prioritised task, knowing that we are going to be able to reproduce the problem is always a challenge), but asking a user to sign up to post a bug report is often an obstacle to the user. The user is normally going to be a pissed off when the bug occurs - especially if there's been a crash without recoverable work...
It also pains it for me to say, but a quick poll with the team here suggests that I am one of very few who -ever- posts bug reports to 3rd party software. My family didn't even know it 'was a thing you could do', so bug reports are really valuable - after all, with community-oriented software, the users are often going to be your alpha/beta testers, and you want to make it as comfortable as possible to report their issues.
I know we get this sort of thing of wanting to bug-bash and clear them all, and sometimes when there's lots of them, the last thing we want is to be dumped with a whole load more - but maybe it's our attitude to bug reports that need to change (I really am talking about me here). I have found it really demoralising when nobody reports any bugs at all!
Remember the godawful "Are you sure you want to quit?" alerts that plagued applications for a couple of decades or more? Maybe, and while it is in development, Inkscape could offer an optional response form... something like:
It is our ambition to make Inkscape as easy and as intuitive as possible for you to use; as it is a community-developed application, we would really like to hear about your experience today. If there was anything about your experience in this session that you feel could be improved upon, could you describe it so that we can consider it in future releases:
[Submit Feedback] [Not this time] [Exit and don't show this form again]
It's just a thought.
On #1193 (thanks guys) and the other UI/UX issues, I would suggest thinking of using preferences for the variation of types of behaviour, defaulting to OS Conventions - this allows for those who migrate across OS to get the 'same experience' - which I see as valid, as well as providing the user expectations of single OS users (which I also see as valid). I really have no skills with GTK+, but I would have thought that the MacOS expectation could be managed with an invisible/hidden window, (which would mean adding a visibility attribute to a document class somewhere, I guess). Much that it is counter-intuitive to non MacOS users, windowless 'menubar+dock' presence is the norm for most mac users.
..and now I'm being called over to fix some bugs...
The best to you all. -Ben
Inkscape Devel mailing list -- inkscape-devel@lists.inkscape.org To unsubscribe send an email to inkscape-devel-leave@lists.inkscape.org
hi ben. yes you did sound "angry" in your initial post. there is usually something else going on under the surface, that when brought into the light allows those around you to understand what's up with you and, most importantly, for you to see it too and regain your perspective on the issue at hand. i applaud you for your honesty. your acknowledgement and voicing the underlying reason is courageous and has offered positive conversation and i believe growth for you and the developers involved with the inkscape project.
to all of the developers: i have been following the development list for some time now and have witnessed the pain and agony you all suffer in raising this life [program] to be a productive member of society [software]. as an end-user, i never knew all that goes into creating art as software. yes, coding is art. i have created web sites and understand the pain and agony of producing a user-friendly interface and still make the site work.
keep up the good work! you will get there and hopefully you can squash all of those pesky bugs. :-)
cheers, dwain
On Wed, Nov 20, 2019 at 3:01 AM Ben Griffin ben@redsnapper.net wrote:
Hi folks,
Before I say anything more, I want to apologise if I upset any of you with the 'arrogance or laziness' phrase; it is a phrase I use on myself when I respond negatively in response to some naive end-user pointing out an issue which I don't really want to deal with - either because (a) I don't relate to it as being a bug ('arrogance') - mainly stemming from either ignorance of the issue, or my own conviction regarding how something 'should be'. (b) I haven't got the time to do it ('laziness') - often due to lack of resources, or a different consideration of priorities.
Of course, the words we use towards ourselves can sound completely out of place when used out of context, and this was one of those times. Mea Culpa - my sole (really weak) excuse is that I have been busy (emotionally and physically) burying a close friend who recently passed away from a sudden and devastating cancer, and I am not looking for sympathy here. On my side I was lazy not to post my bugs. I will register onto gitlab and I will also post bugs there in future.
What I have been given by yourselves is a window of insight into the dev group behind Inkscape, and wow - you have a really healthy relationship as a group. I'm not being ironic: You are all able to discuss these things without groupthink, while contributing with both conviction but also flexibility. I'm impressed. Unless my world changes dramatically, I doubt I will have any time to tool up to be able to contribute significantly to the Inkscape project - but I am encouraged.
Your contributions and discussion arising from my post has been thought-provoking. It got me thinking (yet again) all about what a bug is in the first place, and this is all going to be IMO, anyhow...
In many ways, as developers we often find ourselves dealing with language bugs - stuff that won't compile, weird crashes, and memory leaks (even in C++17, but wow I'm so glad that C++ is beginning to protect memory management); I guess many of you has been around long enough to remember the days when we didn't have static analysis or even IDEs; (that's enough reminiscing Ben). But for the user, any form of unexpected behaviour is a bug - and this 'unexpected behaviour' is exactly what we have designed. It's at these times that it can be seriously difficult to accept our design as a bug. I have argued - way beyond my own investment in it - against calling some user issue a bug, because I feel that both the users and the other project stakeholders don't understand the elegance, beauty - fuckit - ART behind the code that I deliver.
So again, I'm really sorry if I ruffled feathers. I believe I can empathise.
For the concrete case: maybe adding a 'first' somewhere into that text would already be enough to clarify that discussion is in *some* cases recommended *before* making a report / feature request?
Ben, what do you think? Would that have helped to not be surprised by the request to report your findings after discussing them?
I was thinking a lot about Maren's comments (the above, and others) re. bug reporting: Maybe it's best to have a one-stop shop for all issues, regardless of whether or not the dev. community considers it a bug. I don't know if any of you ever worked on projects like firefox, but they have upwards of 15 million reports on Bugzilla now; it does mean that more time would be needed to de-duplicate / cross-reference, and so on - but you probably have to do that already anyhow. There are challenges with bug report systems - one of them being that we really do need to get bug reports (and converting them into a digestible prioritised task, knowing that we are going to be able to reproduce the problem is always a challenge), but asking a user to sign up to post a bug report is often an obstacle to the user. The user is normally going to be a pissed off when the bug occurs - especially if there's been a crash without recoverable work...
It also pains it for me to say, but a quick poll with the team here suggests that I am one of very few who -ever- posts bug reports to 3rd party software. My family didn't even know it 'was a thing you could do', so bug reports are really valuable - after all, with community-oriented software, the users are often going to be your alpha/beta testers, and you want to make it as comfortable as possible to report their issues.
I know we get this sort of thing of wanting to bug-bash and clear them all, and sometimes when there's lots of them, the last thing we want is to be dumped with a whole load more - but maybe it's our attitude to bug reports that need to change (I really am talking about me here). I have found it really demoralising when nobody reports any bugs at all!
Remember the godawful "Are you sure you want to quit?" alerts that plagued applications for a couple of decades or more? Maybe, and while it is in development, Inkscape could offer an optional response form... something like:
It is our ambition to make Inkscape as easy and as intuitive as possible for you to use; as it is a community-developed application, we would really like to hear about your experience today. If there was anything about your experience in this session that you feel could be improved upon, could you describe it so that we can consider it in future releases:
[Submit Feedback] [Not this time] [Exit and don't show this form again]
It's just a thought.
On #1193 (thanks guys) and the other UI/UX issues, I would suggest thinking of using preferences for the variation of types of behaviour, defaulting to OS Conventions - this allows for those who migrate across OS to get the 'same experience' - which I see as valid, as well as providing the user expectations of single OS users (which I also see as valid). I really have no skills with GTK+, but I would have thought that the MacOS expectation could be managed with an invisible/hidden window, (which would mean adding a visibility attribute to a document class somewhere, I guess). Much that it is counter-intuitive to non MacOS users, windowless 'menubar+dock' presence is the norm for most mac users.
..and now I'm being called over to fix some bugs...
The best to you all. -Ben
Inkscape Devel mailing list -- inkscape-devel@lists.inkscape.org To unsubscribe send an email to inkscape-devel-leave@lists.inkscape.org
Hi Ben,
Thank you for your considered response. My sympathies for your situation.
But for the user, any form of unexpected behaviour is a bug
It's a valid bug to the project. We classify them as "User Experience Bugs" and to fix them (and debug them) requires a specific set of UX skills that precious few developers ever learn. For example collecting data from users who use the software interface in a consistent manner.
re. bug reporting: Maybe it's best to have a one-stop shop for all issues,
We do, this location is called `inbox` and I don't think anyone minds if feature requests, user experience problems or other thoughts end up in the inbox. The design is to allow them to be shuttled to the right places. A UX issue may not end up in Inkscape's issue box right away though as regular developers want to see more actionable things.
Best Regards, Martin Owens
Hi all,
as for the bug reporting, I think that reading was a misinterpretation of the intended meaning of the text we're talking about.
The bug report page (besides in detail explaining how to make a good bug report, and where to post it) explains that when you're not sure if something is a bug or not (or when you don't have the experience with Inkscape to be able to tell), then you can describe the problem on the mailing list or in the chat first, to get help and feedback. The decision which way to try first is the user's.
This is because else, we'd get a number of bug reports about things that are not bugs, but actually support requests.
Discussion doesn't exclude making a report later, if it turns out to be something that needs work on the code.
See https://inkscape.org/contribute/report-bugs/ , last section.
I'd be grateful for help with better phrasing, or even with a better guide for new contributors.
Windell, I'd really like to hear about the stumbling blocks that you encountered. That's going to be very helpful to know and maybe find ways to 'fix' and improve.
For the concrete case: maybe adding a 'first' somewhere into that text would already be enough to clarify that discussion is in *some* cases recommended *before* making a report / feature request?
Ben, what do you think? Would that have helped to not be surprised by the request to report your findings after discussing them?
Maren
Am 19.11.19 um 01:36 schrieb Windell H. Oskay:
On Nov 18, 2019, at 2:58 PM, C R cajhne@gmail.com wrote:
No document window open and just a bar at the top? That's just awful UX imho.
Terrible UX. Fight me. lol
You are I are entitled to opinions about whether or not it's a good UX, but that *is* the standard of how Mac applications have worked since 1984.
Putting that on Ben, or me, is not appropriate. (Asking for a fight, even jokingly, even less so.)
Also, I don't get the attitude "you're all just lazy" and then refusing to fill out a bug report so we can action it.
I don't like it either, but I think that I do understand where it's coming from. We, the Inkscape community, have a bad habit of telling users to report or contribute something one way, and then when they do exactly as we've asked, we ask them to do it a different way.*
That exact same thing has happened to me several times, and it can be *extremely* frustrating, especially for someone new in a community. People lash out when they're frustrated.
Someone want to add an issue for it on behalf of the OP, then I'll upvote it.
I already did: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inbox/issues/1193 Your upvote would be appreciated.
Now-- For everyone's sake: Let's please move any further discussion of this particular UX issue _there_ and off this mailing list.
*I'm totally up for discussions about how to be genuinely more welcoming to new contributors. _______________________________________________ Inkscape Devel mailing list -- inkscape-devel@lists.inkscape.org To unsubscribe send an email to inkscape-devel-leave@lists.inkscape.org
participants (7)
-
Ben Griffin -
brynn -
C R -
Dwain Alford -
Maren Hachmann -
Martin Owens -
Windell H. Oskay