Hi, I apologize if I sounded too critical; the criticism intended to be constructive. All the more because I do see lots of potential in Inkscape and would like to see it to emerge as a strong competitor to commercial products. And thank you for pointing me out a few of the things I overlooked when testing the program. But despite all the above I still stick to what I said in my previous remarks. What hard to understand is why open source developers dont seem to recognize the importance of user-friendly interfaces. (There are a few notable exceptions to this like Firefox or Thunderbird, which are world class).
From the point of view of the designer the dialog boxes, panels, popup
windows are always nuisances. They interrupt the workflow and disrupt concentration. Therefore, it makes sense to design then as inconspicuous as possible. Consider this, each time adobe or macromedia releases a product they always accuse each other of stealing ideas. Recently, if I remember well it was adobe who claimed that the idea of grouping panels was its invention and accused macromedia of stealing it. This shows the importance they attribute to properly developed interface.
From: bulia byak <buliabyak@...155...> Reply-To: inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net To: inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-user] My impressions on Inkscape Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 23:31:18 -0500
On Sun, 12 Dec 2004 16:41:20 -0500, Jozsef Mak <j_mak3@...9...> wrote:
Examples: the Object properties palette is a puzzle; I expected that this would be one
of
the most important panels where the essential parameters of the selected object can be found and edited. I've found nothing to edit there.
I don't understand you. It provides access to the id and per-object visibility and lock. That's exactly what I would call "object properties" because they universally apply to all objects. What were you expecting to see there?
My criticism of the Property panel can be illustrated comparing it with Freehands. In Freehand when I draw, lets say, a square, in the property window I find the following entries; the name and the size of the object, it also shows that it is stroked or filled with color; if stroke and fill is present it shows the color of them. If I want to change the color of any of the properties I just click on the small swatch next to the propertys name, the color swatches pops up and I can chose a new color. But lets say I want to change the fill to gradient. In the Property window I choose the gradient option and the gradient ramp pops up, not in a separate window but in the same property panel where I can change every possible parameters of the gradient. This is just one thing; in the property window I can change, transform and undo virtually every feature that the object can have. With the examples, I could go on and on. In adobe illustrator the same thing, they only renamed the Property window to Appearances. The property window ideally is the only place where all features and transformations can be edited and undone. By the way, Scribus too has been developing in this direction. It has a well-designed property window where you can set most of the parameters of the document.
The font palette looks like it was borrowed from an office suite.
Could you elaborate? What's wrong with it specifically?
The font panel. If you open openoffices font panel and Inkscapes font panel you can see that the layout of the two is very similar. Nothing really wrong with this other than it spoils the look and feel of the program. By the way, layout; I noticed that most open source developers handle space very liberally. Rather than economizing spaces and designing small compact windows they end up creating huge ones that one has to keep dragging from side to side on the screen to see the art work underneath. In my estimation the size of the text macromedia uses in its panels about 8 pt. Inkscape font panel uses 11 or 12 pt. I cannot see any reason for this. Simply using smaller fonts would help reducing the size of the panels.
The implementation of gradients are so weird that hard to describe.
You may not bother yourself describing it :) It will be redesigned. It's one of the worst (and most difficult to change) interface aspects we inherited from Sodipodi. We're working towards changing it entirely, though so far most of the work was in the internals.
The Export Bitmap dialog box is poorly designed, the window wouldn't even close after saving
files.
OF COURSE if would not close. That's the point. In cases like this, I'd suggest that you try to understand Inkscape's natural workflow better, instead of criticising it for not fitting your pre-formed idea of a workflow. The fact that this is a regular non-modal dialog that stays open while I can select various objects on the canvas, and see the export parameters of each one at once (by the way they are stored with the objects), and then export with a single click - this is one of the most convenient aspects of the program.
The program lacks the tool to group panels into different panel groups.
Some work on this was being done, so hopefully it will be finished sometime. Though honestly I don't see much pressing need for this.
In addition, most of the features are incomplete. The new text on path
is
nice but, if you design a circular logo, most of the time, you would
want to
put text on the top and on the bottom of the circle. Can you do this in Inkscape? I couldn't figure out.
There are many ways to do this. I can give you details if you really need them, though I think it's not that difficult to figure out. Certainly we will add more obvious controls for text stuff, but even as is, it's quite powerful.
Also when export text on path, it exports the path as well, which is unacceptable.
It exports exactly what you tell it to export. If you don't want the path to export, just hide it! Implementing arbitrary special-case rules like "when exporting textpath do not export its path", as you suggest, would be a usability nightmare.
Another example: the implementation of patterns. It is nice to have it
but
it is basic to have the tool to edit it after applied to a shape
(moving,
scaling and so on). Without this the feature has limited use.
Didn't you notice the handles that allow you do exactly this?
Well, admittedly it's incomplete. E.g. the handles don't always work (only for shapes, not paths I think). Scaling patterns can only be uniform so far. This is all known problems, we're working on them.
I also couldn't rename pattens but stuck with the generic names.
Yes, that needs to be added too.
I missed the preset zoom settings at the left bottom corner, as well.
Right-click on the zoom control.
A word on priorities. In my view adding features should proceed from the most essential toward the less important. At the hart of a vector
drawing
program one expect to find tools, such as swatches, gradients, tints and pattern palettes and the capacity to to export and import them from one document to the other. Symbols are also essential to work efficiently.
We appreciate any input from the users on what features are the most important for them. They do affect our implementation priorities. That said, please don't assume that what you consider "basic" is indeed basic for everyone. Every user has his own specific needs and priorities. Lots of people find the program perfectly usable, i.e. it fills all of _their_ basic needs.
For me, for example, most of what you list above is just un-essential niceties which would be good to have, but they don't block me. E.g. when I need to copy a gradient or pattern to another document, I just copy/paste an object with that gradient or pattern to the new document. Instead, there are other basic things that _I_ miss but which you didn't even notice, etc.
Until they are implemented pointless adding less commonly used ones like
bitmap
tracing, for instance. Any graphic artist can tell that this is a
relatively
seldom used tool in the actual work environment.
I think such comments are not productive. You are welcome to suggest what needs to be done, but telling us that something should _not_ have been done is, you know, rather useless :) (Unless of course you're suggesting specific ways in which it should have been done _differently_.)
A programmer needed this feature and implemented it. Lots of people appreciate that. What's wrong with that?
I found great that I could export a selection rather than the entire ardboard; this feature dearly missed even in
adobe
illustrator.
Yeah, and if you think about it, you will realize why our export dialog does not close when you do export (see above).
My conclusion: before adding additional features polish up and complete
the
existing ones. Also before go on adding more tools implement the fundamentals (swatches, tints, gradients, patterns, symbols and so on)
and
redo the interface from scratch.
My conclusions for you :)
- Before suggesting something, examine Inkscape in detail. What you
want might already be there, though not packaged exactly as you would expect.
- If something is done differently in Inkscape, give it a thought. It
might be for a reason (though it might just as well be not). And it might be more convenient, once you get the hang of it. And if you're sure that something can indeed be done more convenient in some way, feel free to suggest, no matter how small or big is the suggestion. We DO appreciate that.
- When suggesting, please be as specific as possible. Just saying
"it's badly designed" is not enough. Do some interface mock-ups or detailed "ideal" workflow descriptions, that will really help us (implementors). Do ask on the list first, however, because the area which you're interested in may already be under a redesign, or planned to be redesigned shortly.
- Try not to sound too authoritative (OK, I know I'm prone to this
myself, but still :) You know, "I think this is important" sounds much better than "Any graphic artist will tell you that this is important." :)
Thanks for your input!
I agree with many of the things you say in the rest of your reply and indeed, I can see the excellent features Inkscape has. Probably, you noticed that I didnt criticize Inkscape because lacking features (other than the swatches that I dearly miss). One of my criticisms aimed at the incomplete implementation of them. Well, even the philosopher said; No truth is better than half truth. In a real work environment (as opposed to just playing around with programs at home as a hobby) you seldom use only one program. Most of the time you have to work with many (Adobe illustrator, Photoshop, Freehand, Flash, Dreamweaver and so on) Imagine, if all of these programs would have been designed by disregarding usability, and developers would implement features according to their own likings; it would be insane. Designers would go crazy to learn all of the randomly implemented tools in each application. But what you see is the user interfaces of the various programs getting more and more similar. Even between competing products like adobe and macromedia. Often, they borrow ideas from one other, openly. Why should then open source developers invent the wheel rather than take a look how others did what they are doing now? You know, Picasso said ones, Every good artist knows how to copy but only the exceptional ones know how to steal.
Regards, jozsefmak
SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/ _______________________________________________ Inkscape-user mailing list Inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-user