Ralf Stephan wrote:

Jon Cruz:

...

If you're interested, take a peek at the update to the "View|Show/ Hide" menu.

The work to get generic things placed in a nice, dynamic manner still needs to get in, but it's a visible start.

Great! Three issues spontaneously:

• while it appears the field size is saved between inkscape sessions, the chosen palette isn't;

I think is more useful to preserve the chosen palette on a document basis instead of inkscape sessions - this way when later editing an image you would not have to remember which palette was used at creation time.

• the X button doesn't do a thing;
• the window can't be resized, can it?

bulia byak wrote:

On 12/21/05, Jon A. Cruz <jon@...18...> wrote:

...

If you're interested, take a peek at the update to the "View|Show/ Hide" menu.

This is very important news. Not really "happy-happy-bulia" quite yet, but it's a great first step in that direction :)

I'm not sure how much of the UI fixes you are planning/aware of, so I'll just list the most urgent ones here:

• The tall bar with the useless "X" and the menu of palettes must be

removed. We cannot waste that much vertical space in the main interface. The menu should be available on right-click.

• Only one of the scrollbars must be present, though I'm afraid it

will be the horizontal one (wastes space, but is at least usable). Or, make it configurable which scroll direction the user prefers (but the default is horizontal). If you can make the horizontal scrollbar smaller than the standard size, it will be a bonus.

• Ideally the panel should be resizable, by dragging its top border.

After releasing, its vertical size would snap to the nearest multiple of the swatch height, so there's no half-visible swatches.

• I like the horizontally-stretched shape of the swatches, they look

just like the selected style indicator I just did. But the swatch sizes must be smaller, in both dimensions. The "big" must be like the current "middle", and "small" must be much smaller. (Actually, some months ago we invented, in messages in this list, a rather complex algorithm for sizing and scrolling of swatches. Can you please dig it up?)

I'd like to add something that ties into both the resizeable stuff and the scroll orientation. I think it would be excellent if the swatch panel could also break off like the toolbars. My thought is that way it could be running horizontal across the bottom, running vertical down the side of the document, just a big square of swatches floating on-canvas (for the Illustrator users), or whatever else pleases you. I think the only awkward part would be that it would then need grips on two sides (to snap appropriately to the different locations). Eh, just a thought.

I also do have to give my .02 that Bulia's ideas sound excellent.

-Josh

bulia byak wrote:

On 12/21/05, Joshua A. Andler <joshua@...533...> wrote:

...

I'd like to add something that ties into both the resizeable stuff and the scroll orientation. I think it would be excellent if the swatch panel could also break off like the toolbars.

Do you really ever use the toolbars torn-off?

If they would stay on top on win32 and Gnome in fullscreen mode, I would most definitely have the toolbox floating if nothing else. That's one of the very few things I miss from Illustrator. And you know those mini toolbars I brought up... man oh man would my interface be cluttered with all of those floating around too. :-) When I get into really detailed work the last thing I want to do is have to move my cursor far from where I'm working. In Inkscape, other than B, N, and Spacebar, I use the mouse to switch tools. In fact, go to http://www.scislac.com/ai.jpg to see what my AI interface is like... and yes, that's two sets of the same toolbar at the bottom left and top right of the page... I always just go for whichever is closer. So, if Gnome and Win32 GTK get fixed, I will.

...

My thought is that way it could be running horizontal across the bottom, running vertical down the side of the document,

Vertical placement on the side would be good to have, certainly, if only for the "list" option.

Ahhh, I wasn't even thinking of that and it sounds even better now! On my complex documents I have so many similar colors that having them named will definitely be useful for me. Perhaps we could even have a function to collect all colors in a current document to a swatch set (at which point I could name them).

...

just a big square of swatches floating on-canvas (for the Illustrator users),

Ctrl+Shift+W :)

Heh... guess I was thinking that would be removed in favor of a more robust toolbar/swatch box.

-Josh

On Wednesday 21 December 2005 15:25, bulia byak wrote:

• Only one of the scrollbars must be present, though I'm afraid it

will be the horizontal one (wastes space, but is at least usable). Or, make it configurable which scroll direction the user prefers (but the default is horizontal). If you can make the horizontal scrollbar smaller than the standard size, it will be a bonus.

Another possibility would be an arrow at each end of the panel, thus removing the need for a scrollbar, if Gtk can do that. I Think this is how Xara does it?

A third possibility would be third-mouse button panning of the swatches panel, as one already pans the canvas.

On Sat, 2005-12-24 at 12:57 -0400, bulia byak wrote:

On 12/23/05, Jean-François Lemaire <jflemaire@...621...> wrote:

...

Another possibility would be an arrow at each end of the panel, thus removing the need for a scrollbar, if Gtk can do that. I Think this is how Xara does it?

It's less usable than a scrollbar. With a scrollbar, I can move quickly to the other end. With a button, I have to press and wait until it scrolls. So, I'd much prefer a scrollbar even if it takes more space.

If I recall correctly I brought up the issue of miniature widgets on gtk-devel at some point, but didn't quite get a positive feedback. Maybe someone else with closer ties to the developers can ask for them again :)

Merry Christmas!

David