Ok, here's the feature request: https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/1790927
So those of you who have other suggestions, you can describe them there :-)
Thanks again! brynn
-----Original Message----- From: brynn Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2018 11:34 AM To: inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net ; Mark Schafer Cc: Andrew Kurn Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] [Inkscape-user] improve organization of Extensions menu
Hi Mark and all, Wow, a user-configured menu! That never occurred to me. I wonder if that would be hard to do, I mean for developers?
I've only recently learned how extensions are placed in the menu (by code in the INX file). To me, it would seem logical to use the user directory structure to form the menu. So for example, if a user wanted a Skateboard submenu, they would put a Skateboard folder in their user extension directory. But again, I have no idea how hard that would be to do.
But I think it's a good idea worth considering.
Someone else replied to me privately, who suggested that with so many extensions that we have now, and considering the approx 300 external ones, it might be useful to have something like an extension manager, where there could be a search or filter type of feature, for locating the one you need. I guess they mean like with tags to aid the searching/filtering.
Well, I guess I was hoping by having a discussion about this, it might be possible to bypass the feature request route, where it sometimes seems like we put things that need a nice long nap. But I suppose I should go ahead and open a formal feature request.
I'll reply again shortly with a link. Thanks for the discussion!
All best, brynn
-----Original Message----- From: Mark Schafer Sent: Monday, September 03, 2018 9:54 PM To: inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] [Inkscape-user] improve organization of Extensions menu
Hi Brynn,
I agree the current set is overloaded in some areas. E.g. Render (where most of them are) There's a good reason for allowing people to make their own. E.g. I have a few under Skateboarding now. In the past I have suggested adding: - Folded forms - for sheetmetal, envelope, and construction approaches involving sheets of some kind. - Music - Drawing - by which I mean technical drawing as well as more figurative tools. (which are generally under Generate from path atm.)
Its my opinion that Custom and Render are too generic and that an extension should try harder to determine what its good for. However I acknowledge that an extension might be so generically useful that it belongs there.
I'm still moving house (seems interminable) and still hoping to get back to this and the extensions gitlab project.
On 9/4/2018 12:36 PM, C R wrote:
Thanks for the work, Brynn! I'd like to suggest that the "Render" category be changed to "Generate", because "Render" in graphics is most often the generation of raster graphics from data (such as vectors).
The rest of your proposal sounds good to me. -C
On Tue, Sep 4, 2018 at 1:11 AM brynn <brynn@...3089...> wrote: Hi Friends, As part of my project to get all the known external extensions listed in one place, and trying to organize them (using the current Extensions menu as a starting place) I've realized that how the Extensions menu is organized might need some improvement. I've also discussed it privately with a couple of other users. So I thought I'd bring up the subject with developers.
For example.
1 -- Should Stylesheet be a submenu under Web? 2 -- Should Typography be a submenu under Text?
Currently, many extension makers seem to be making their own submenus for their extensions. For people who use a lot of external extensions, I wonder if their menus are harder to use. If we had the menu already organized, it might inspire extension makers to put their extensions into the pre-existing submenus, rather than make their own.
3 -- Should there be a Gcode submenu under Export? (more about Export submenu below)
In my list, I've created a separate Gcode category. There are lots of external extensions which produce gcode (approx 20). I don't know where they would show up in the Extensions menu, yet (since I just now learned how to find out). But as I said, it might help keep the menu clean, to have submenus ready for the external extensions, even if there might not be any built-in extensions for some submenus.
4 -- Should the current Gcodetools submenu appear within this proposed Gcode submenu?
5 -- To accomodate external extensions, both Render and Export need to be divided into several submenus.
6 -- I've also created a new category (for my list) Animation/Presentation (currently 10 or 12 of them). It seems like the existing JessyInk submenu should go under there (assuming we were to agree on adding such a submenu).
7 -- There are 3 external extensions which comprise a Boolean category. But shouldn't Boolean be under the existing Modify Path submenu?
8 -- And once I get all the external ones organized, I guess other instances of potentially improved organization might come to light.
If anyone else has any observations about improving the organization of the Extensions menu, please feel free to make comments :-)
Yes, I realize a lot of developers are getting ready to go to Hackfest. But I wanted to mention this, in case it might come up. Otherwise, it can still be discussed, now or later.
Thank you very much, brynn
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