I've been trying to use Inkscape but its UI seems designed to foil attempts. Specifically when I select the rectangle drawing tool and create a shape by dragging I get one width a dashed contour that vanishes as soon as I click anywhere on the pane. There does not seem to be any way to make it stick and thus to actually get a rectangle. How dumb is that? If you need assistance just to draw a rectangle, never mind more advanced operation, something's really wrong with the UI.
Likewise the need to use a CTRL modifier for the arrow keys to work runs counter to th expectations developed in users by every other software I can think of and is inconvenient to boot.
-- O.L.
On 1/19/07, Olivier Lefevre <lefevrol@...12...> wrote:
I've been trying to use Inkscape but its UI seems designed to foil attempts. Specifically when I select the rectangle drawing tool and create a shape by dragging I get one width a dashed contour that vanishes as soon as I click anywhere on the pane. There does not seem to be any way to make it stick and thus to actually get a rectangle. How dumb is that? If you need assistance just to draw a rectangle, never mind more advanced operation, something's really wrong with the UI.
You're most likely drawing it fully transparent or white, which is why it's invisible. Look at the statusbar: on the left it shows you the style of the selected object. Or, switch to the Selector tool and read the description of the selected object and see its bounding box handles. All the hints are there, just look.
If it's transparent, use the Opacity field in the statusbar to fix that. If it's white or has None for fill, click on any color to repaint it. What could be easier?
And if you're wondering why it's creating it transparent or white, then it's because you have assigned that style to some object and Inkscape has remembered it. By default, all shape tools use the last-used style for new objects, and it's a great time saver. (Although you can turn this off if you like.)
Likewise the need to use a CTRL modifier for the arrow keys to work runs counter to th expectations developed in users by every other software I can think of and is inconvenient to boot.
Inkscape is not a viewer. Its primary function is editing. Therefore, plain arrow keys are reserved for the most basic editing action: moving the selected object(s) around. Using Ctrl+arrows for scrolling canvas is an added convenience. By the way, consider that many other vector editors have no keyboard shortcuts for scrolling AT ALL; there, you can only scroll by mouse.
Thanks for the explanations. So if I create the rectangle and immediately switch to the select tool yes I get to see its properties and change them. It did not occur to me to try the selector because the object seemed to have disappeared as soon as I clicked elsewhere. I'll be damned if I know why it was white: I have _viewed_ some SVG documents in Inkscape before but this is my first stab at creating one.
In the status bar I would suggest not using F and S but spelling out Fill and Stroke in full: there is enough space for that and if you are a newcomer and both F and S say "N/A" it is not obvious what they refer to. Besides it seems weird for the stroke to be N/A: I can understand having no fill but how can an object have neither fill nor stroke yet still somehow exist? As per your own message, shouldn't the stroke have been white or transparent and not N/A? White is definitely a color and in most editing tools transparent _is_ a color, too, albeit obviously a peculiar one.
Inkscape is not a viewer. Its primary function is editing. Therefore, plain arrow keys are reserved for the most basic editing action:
OK.
-- O.L.
On Sun, 28 Jan 2007 23:52:09 +0100 Olivier Lefevre <lefevrol@...12...> wrote:
Thanks for the explanations. So if I create the rectangle and immediately switch to the select tool yes I get to see its properties and change them. It did not occur to me to try the selector because the object seemed to have disappeared as soon as I clicked elsewhere. I'll be damned if I know why it was white: I have _viewed_ some SVG documents in Inkscape before but this is my first stab at creating one.
Something else to watch out for is zero width lines. These will be invisible in Inkscape but when you print the file such lines will show up as minimum width ones. They can be very difficult to find, especially in a drawing with lots of work on the same area.
On 1/28/07, Olivier Lefevre <lefevrol@...12...> wrote:
Thanks for the explanations. So if I create the rectangle and immediately switch to the select tool yes I get to see its properties and change them.
Actually you don't need to go to Selector to change most properties. Assigning color and changing opacity on selected object(s) works equally well in any tool.
It did not occur to me to try the selector because the object seemed to have disappeared as soon as I clicked elsewhere.
Clicking elsewhere deselects the object, which means it loses any artificial selection markers and becomes invisible. You could always reselect it back using lots of different selection methods (even if it is invisible).
In the status bar I would suggest not using F and S but spelling out Fill and Stroke in full: there is enough space for that
I thought about that too, although we don't really have that much space there (we need to make visible as much of the statusbar message as possible) but perhaps the gain in discoverability that we'll get by spelling out these labels is worth it.
to. Besides it seems weird for the stroke to be N/A: I can understand having no fill but how can an object have neither fill nor stroke yet still somehow exist?
Yes, this is allowed by SVG and we just obey the standard here.
As per your own message, shouldn't the stroke have been white or transparent and not N/A?
Per SVG, white stroke, zero opacity stroke, no stroke, and zero width stroke are all different specifications although they may look the same. And I think it's consistent.
Note that you can still make such an object visible and easy selectable by switching to Outline mode in View menu. In this mode, each object is shown by its outline, even if in fact it has no stroke or is fully transparent. You can also select any object by clicking on its outline (requires 0.45, as in 0.44 this mode was buggy).
On Sun, Jan 28, 2007 at 11:52:09PM +0100, Olivier Lefevre wrote:
Thanks for the explanations. So if I create the rectangle and immediately switch to the select tool yes I get to see its properties and change them. It did not occur to me to try the selector because the object seemed to have disappeared as soon as I clicked elsewhere. I'll be damned if I know why it was white: I have _viewed_ some SVG documents in Inkscape before but this is my first stab at creating one.
In the status bar I would suggest not using F and S but spelling out Fill and Stroke in full: there is enough space for that and if you are a newcomer and both F and S say "N/A" it is not obvious what they refer to. Besides it seems weird for the stroke to be N/A: I can understand
Would it perhaps be clearer to get rid of the labels entirely and just show a rectangle or other shape in the fill color, with a border in the stroke color (if any)? Then we could eliminate the need to localize at all, which could be beneficial in languages where the translation for 'fill' or 'stroke' may end up being a longer word.
Bryce
having no fill but how can an object have neither fill nor stroke yet still somehow exist? As per your own message, shouldn't the stroke have been white or transparent and not N/A? White is definitely a color and in most editing tools transparent _is_ a color, too, albeit obviously a peculiar one.
Inkscape is not a viewer. Its primary function is editing. Therefore, plain arrow keys are reserved for the most basic editing action:
OK.
-- O.L.
On 1/29/07, Bryce Harrington <bryce@...983...> wrote:
Would it perhaps be clearer to get rid of the labels entirely and just show a rectangle or other shape in the fill color, with a border in the stroke color (if any)?
I don't think so, because you can't make it large enough for the color to be visible enough. The current layout presents wide enough swatches for both colors which can be quickly identified even with a quick sideways glance. If one of the colors will be applied to a thin frame, it will be much more frustrating to try to find out what color it really is. More importantly, now each of the swatches can display a text label - "None", "Unset", etc. - which you can't fit into such a "frame swatch". Also each swatch now displays a gradient preview with an "L" or "R" prefix to indicate linear and radial (elliptic). Not only you cannot fit these letters into the framed swatch, but without them, in many cases it's difficult to tell a slight gradient from a flat color, especially if applied to the stroke.
On 1/29/07, bulia byak <buliabyak@...155...> wrote:
On 1/29/07, Bryce Harrington <bryce@...983...> wrote:
Would it perhaps be clearer to get rid of the labels entirely and just show a rectangle or other shape in the fill color, with a border in the stroke color (if any)?
I don't think so, because you can't make it large enough for the color to be visible enough.
Hi,
Remove the layer dialog from the bottom toolbar (which is redundant anyway) and you have enough room for the more important stroke and fill swathes. You can position them side by side. Cleaner and simpler.
Jmak
On 1/29/07, jmak <jozmak@...155...> wrote:
Remove the layer dialog from the bottom toolbar (which is redundant anyway)
It may be redundant for you, but many find it convenient to be able to do simple layer operations without opening the layers dialog.
On 1/29/07, bulia byak <buliabyak@...155...> wrote:
On 1/29/07, jmak <jozmak@...155...> wrote:
Remove the layer dialog from the bottom toolbar (which is redundant anyway)
It may be redundant for you, but many find it convenient to be able to do simple layer operations without opening the layers dialog.
I worked for 15 years in professional graphic business using both illustrator and freehand. If these commercial applications can make do with one layer palette why cannot Inkscape. Priorities are very important.
Jmak
On 1/29/07, jmak <jozmak@...155...> wrote:
I worked for 15 years in professional graphic business using both illustrator and freehand. If these commercial applications can make do with one layer palette why cannot Inkscape. Priorities are very important.
Oh come on. Illustrator users, for example, can "make do" without a proper on-canvas gradient editing - a really basic convenience for users of Xara and Inkscape. Every UI seems best only until someone invents a better one.
On 1/29/07, bulia byak <buliabyak@...155...> wrote:
On 1/29/07, jmak <jozmak@...155...> wrote:
I worked for 15 years in professional graphic business using both illustrator and freehand. If these commercial applications can make do with one layer palette why cannot Inkscape. Priorities are very important.
Oh come on. Illustrator users, for example, can "make do" without a proper on-canvas gradient editing - a really basic convenience for users of Xara and Inkscape. Every UI seems best only until someone invents a better one.
Dont forget that a good interface is not the matter of invention but the result of a gradual improvements based on user experiences. Ones the product manager of macromedia was asked why are the macromedia interfaces are so brilliant? He replied "because we listen to our users". Wise words.
Jmak
On 1/29/07, jmak <jozmak@...155...> wrote:
Dont forget that a good interface is not the matter of invention but the result of a gradual improvements based on user experiences. Ones the product manager of macromedia was asked why are the macromedia interfaces are so brilliant? He replied "because we listen to our users". Wise words.
I agree wholeheartedly. Inkscape has implemented hundreds if not thousands of users' suggestions, and I'm sure it's one of the reasons its interface is liked by many. Whenever a user comes with a specific suggestion backed by a real use case, he can be sure he'll be listened to and some satisfactory solution to his request will be found. If, however, all the user can quote in his support is "big guys are doing it this way and I want Inkscape to copy them," then I think we (developers) can be excused for being a little less attentive :)
On 1/29/07, bulia byak <buliabyak@...155...> wrote:
If, however, all the user can quote in his support is "big guys are doing it this way and I want Inkscape to copy them," then I think we (developers) can be excused for being a little less attentive :)
This is one way to look at it. I personally prefer taking advise from those who have already proven themselves rather than from amateurs or recreational users. Big difference. But beyond user experience, did you know that companies put lots of money into interface research. Some even fund university research projects to help improving the user experiences of their products. This is the other reason why worth looking at the ways commercial apps solve interface issues.
Jmak
On 1/29/07, Andy Richardson <andy@...2022...> wrote:
It can be a little dangerous to correlate the amount of money put into interface research or funding of university research with Interface Usability. Many of the big commercial software developers conduct research in such a way as to justify their UI and it is well known that university research is often pulled toward the objectives of the fundholder. Bottom line with UI Usability is that no one interface will be all things to all people and the flexibility to provide an unconstrained user-customisable UI is (as far as I have seen) still an aspiration.
That companies put money into research projects to justify themselves
and their products rather than improve them is new to me. But heck, you always learn something. What I know is that in work efficiency is everything and if a product has a confusing interface that makes people complain that eventually filters down to the manufacturer. I agree that not one interface satisfy all users. Kids demands kids interface, amateurs amateur and professionals professional interface.
Jmak
On 1/29/07, jmak <jozmak@...155...> wrote:
This is one way to look at it. I personally prefer taking advise from those who have already proven themselves rather than from amateurs or recreational users. Big difference.
As for me, I personally prefer taking advice from those who have spent some time thinking about their problem. Who have first-hand Inkscape experience and understand the basic principles of our UI. Who know how it's done in other apps but have fresh ideas about how it can be done in Inkscape. Who can reason and use real-world examples. Who understand that there exist wildly different user habits and use cases for wildly different tasks.
Rather than from someone who's spent years working with a single product, grew fond of its quirks and limitations, and wants us to reproduce them exactly and literally.
Big difference :)
But beyond user experience, did you know that companies put lots of money into interface research.
I've heard references to this "research" multiple times, but allow me to have my reservations. I do not know what exactly are they trying to measure, in what way, and what effect it has on their UI - so I cannot assess that. What I see and can assess is the final result, the UI of their products. And needless to say, I can identify many horrendously braindead interface choices in most of these "researched" products.
Interestingly, the level of clunkiness seems to be somehow directly proportional to the market share that the product holds (just compare Adobe Illustrator and Xara, or Windows and OSX).
On 1/29/07, bulia byak <buliabyak@...155...> wrote:
On 1/29/07, jmak <jozmak@...155...> wrote:
This is one way to look at it. I personally prefer taking advise from those who have already proven themselves rather than from amateurs or recreational users. Big difference.
As for me, I personally prefer taking advice from those who have spent some time thinking about their problem. Who have first-hand Inkscape experience and understand the basic principles of our UI. Who know how it's done in other apps but have fresh ideas about how it can be done in Inkscape. Who can reason and use real-world examples. Who understand that there exist wildly different user habits and use cases for wildly different tasks.
Nowadays, it is very difficult to come up with really, really new ideas. At least, I haven't seen any for a long time.
Rather than from someone who's spent years working with a single product, grew fond of its quirks and limitations, and wants us to reproduce them exactly and literally.
I didn't say exactly, what I was simply saying, take the best ideas. By the way, I also work with photoshop, 3d max, blender, not only with illustrator of macromedia stuff. So this is not the matter of liking one single product but being able to compare the usability functions of similar apps.
Big difference :)
But beyond user experience, did you know that companies put lots of money into interface research.
I've heard references to this "research" multiple times, but allow me to have my reservations. I do not know what exactly are they trying to measure, in what way, and what effect it has on their UI - so I cannot assess that.
That is efficiency. Because if you spend half of your time say dragging dialog boxes from side to side to be able to see the piece you are working on it is not only inefficient way of working but annoying as well.
What I see and can assess is the final result, the UI of their products. And needless to say, I can identify many horrendously braindead interface choices in most of these "researched" products.
Interestingly, the level of clunkiness seems to be somehow directly proportional to the market share that the product holds (just compare Adobe Illustrator and Xara, or Windows and OSX).
I think you are wrong here.
Jmak
On 1/29/07, jmak <jozmak@...155...> wrote:
That is efficiency. Because if you spend half of your time say dragging dialog boxes from side to side to be able to see the piece you are working on it is not only inefficient way of working but annoying as well.
Excellent point. And guess what, the layer widget in the statusbar is one of the ways to achieve exactly this - avoid dragging dialog boxes around and get better access to your drawing.
What I see and can assess is the final result, the UI of their products. And needless to say, I can identify many horrendously braindead interface choices in most of these "researched" products.
Interestingly, the level of clunkiness seems to be somehow directly proportional to the market share that the product holds (just compare Adobe Illustrator and Xara, or Windows and OSX).
I think you are wrong here.
Really? Can you honestly defend Illustrator's way of handling gradients, as compared to Xara/Inkscape's? And this is just one basic example, I can give tons more.
On 1/29/07, bulia byak <buliabyak@...155...> wrote:
On 1/29/07, jmak <jozmak@...155...> wrote:
That is efficiency. Because if you spend half of your time say dragging dialog boxes from side to side to be able to see the piece you are working on it is not only inefficient way of working but annoying as well.
Excellent point. And guess what, the layer widget in the statusbar is one of the ways to achieve exactly this - avoid dragging dialog boxes around and get better access to your drawing.
What I see and can assess is the final result, the UI of their products. And needless to say, I can identify many horrendously braindead interface choices in most of these "researched" products.
Interestingly, the level of clunkiness seems to be somehow directly proportional to the market share that the product holds (just compare Adobe Illustrator and Xara, or Windows and OSX).
I think you are wrong here.
Really? Can you honestly defend Illustrator's way of handling gradients, as compared to Xara/Inkscape's? And this is just one basic example, I can give tons more.
Illustrator didn't put that much emphasis on grads because it has the mesh tool which is a more sophisticated way of creating complex grad and 3d effects. I guess.
On 1/29/07, jmak <jozmak@...155...> wrote:
Illustrator didn't put that much emphasis on grads because it has the mesh tool which is a more sophisticated way of creating complex grad and 3d effects. I guess.
Even if we ignore the quite different uses of these two tools, I'd just like to point out that gradient meshes didn't appear in Illustrator until version 8 (where they were copied from Corel Draw). So Adobe had plenty of time to "put emphasis on grads" before that - yet they didn't.
On 1/30/07, bulia byak <buliabyak@...155...> wrote:
On 1/29/07, jmak <jozmak@...155...> wrote:
Illustrator didn't put that much emphasis on grads because it has the mesh tool which is a more sophisticated way of creating complex grad and 3d effects. I guess.
Even if we ignore the quite different uses of these two tools, I'd just like to point out that gradient meshes didn't appear in Illustrator until version 8 (where they were copied from Corel Draw). So Adobe had plenty of time to "put emphasis on grads" before that - yet they didn't.
Regarding the layer issue, I see another problem, that is the confusion of priorities. The secondary layer palette definitely a low priority item comparing to the fill-stroke swatches. And that doesn't seem right that a low priority item interferes with a high priority item.
On 1/30/07, jmak <jozmak@...155...> wrote:
Regarding the layer issue, I see another problem, that is the confusion of priorities. The secondary layer palette definitely a low priority item comparing to the fill-stroke swatches. And that doesn't seem right that a low priority item interferes with a high priority item.
I never said it "interferes". I just said that the room in the statusbar is scarce, not because of this widget in particular but because of everything that's there. Sure, different things there have different priorities, no one argues about that. But I don't think it so bad that we should already start removing some things to make room for others. Although perhaps we can discuss some space redistribution (e.g. make the style selector wider, expanding its labels, at the expense of the statusbar tips area).
On Mon, 29 Jan 2007, bulia byak wrote:
On 1/29/07, jmak <jozmak@...155...> wrote:
That is efficiency. Because if you spend half of your time say dragging dialog boxes from side to side to be able to see the piece you are working on it is not only inefficient way of working but annoying as well.
Excellent point. And guess what, the layer widget in the statusbar is one of the ways to achieve exactly this - avoid dragging dialog boxes around and get better access to your drawing.
That can be taken as an argument for allowing dialogs/palettes to be docked or stuck on to the main window.
What I see and can assess is the final result, the UI of their products. And needless to say, I can identify many horrendously braindead interface choices in most of these "researched" products.
Great, if things are braindead it should be easy for you to point out why exactly they are braindead and you shouldn't have a problem copying the other bits. Even so there are still advantages to giving users what they have come to expect and doing things just different enough to be better without being so different to create whole new problems. Microsoft particularly have a talent for plucking features from other applications and refining them for their own use (see the recent debacle about Visual Studio features copied from BlueJ or the draw table widget in Microsoft word that WordPerfect had before they did).
As for innovation you are not immune to hyperbole, all to happy to claim node sclupting as "innovative" (sic) rather than an evolutionary improvement on the warp nodes feature Adobe Illustrator offers, which isn't to say it isn't a significant improvement it just isn't innovative.
Interestingly, the level of clunkiness seems to be somehow directly proportional to the market share that the product holds (just compare Adobe Illustrator and Xara, or Windows and OSX).
I think you are wrong here.
Really?
He was talking about the layer drop down.
If you want to talk about clunkiness Inkscape is fairly clunkey, Xara isn't all that pretty either, there is something that feels old about it.
The double scrollbars used to provide the colour palette aren't pretty. A two line status bar is also particularly unusual and makes the interface look very busy and cramped. The mix of markup in the status bar messages is overkill and adds to the visual noise. The menu item labels are overly verbose ("Layer, <Action> (more words) Layer", rather than simply "Layer, <Action>") adding to the clunky feeling and the menus themselves are still a little disorganised. There are things like Input Devices which would be better served by a section in preferences than a menu item because I certainly hope it isn't something users need to change very often.
Can you honestly defend Illustrator's way of handling gradients, as compared to Xara/Inkscape's? And this is just one basic example, I can give tons more.
Total straw man argument. Fireworks has live on canvas gradients, it just doesn't happen to do them through a completely seperate tool. More relevant is the fact that you brought gradients into the discussion that was about the redundant layers dropdown and you also admitted the status bar was cramped you are only disagreeing on how best to improve the situation. I'd be interested to hear what MentalGuy has to say on the subject given that he implemented the Layers dialog and if he really intended for the Layer dropdown to live on after.
Alan:
I think you're becoming (as Bryce said) overly argumentative. I don't like to start another heated discussion with you, knowing from past experience it's unlikely to bring fruit, so let's both stop now.
I'd just like to point out, for the sake of others who might get a wrong idea from you, that Illustrator has no "warping nodes". It has a "warp effect" which, like most things in Illustrator, is done through a clunky dialog and affects an object as a whole. From the viewpoint of a user, there's almost nothing in common between this effect and Inkscape's node sculpting which is fully interactive, on-canvas, and works on node selection. It's a different process altogether. You seem to be judging (as you too often do) only from screenshots, like this one which indeed shows lots of "warping":
http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png
I think it would benefit everyone if you'd try to actually _use_ the features that you're going to talk about.
On Tue, 30 Jan 2007, bulia byak wrote:
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 09:30:23 -0500 From: bulia byak <buliabyak@...155...> Reply-To: Inkscape User Community inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net To: Inkscape User Community inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-user] [Inkscape-devel] Baffling UI
Alan:
I think you're becoming (as Bryce said) overly argumentative. I don't like to start another heated discussion with you, knowing from past experience it's unlikely to bring fruit, so let's both stop now.
I will try to be more restrained. Some of the mails were sent hastily when I should have paused and reviewed them further.
I'd just like to point out, for the sake of others who might get a wrong idea from you, that Illustrator has no "warping nodes".
Unfortunately your are not correct.
The best I can manage at the moment is to show you this screenshot and try to direct your attention to the very hard to find feature (see the hand with a finger pointing down and beside it a box with a twirl coming out the corner) http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~horkana/inkscape/illustrator/Adobe-Illustrator-CS/A...
(found a better link)
From the middle to the left, see warp tool, and twirl
http://www.coe.fau.edu/abinder/handouts/Itools.htm
These are taken from Adobe Illustrator CS verison 1
"warp effect" which, like most things in Illustrator, is done through a clunky dialog and affects an object as a whole. From the viewpoint
both of which are interative not dialog driven, and admittedly not as good as the tool in inkscape which I have played around with.
I didn't expect you to know of such an obscure feature in quite a recent verions of Adobe Illustrator but the audience reading I was very disappointed when you reverted the Release Notes and insisted this feature was innovative. The audience reading those notes might very know of the feature and disagree, and reviewers of non-linux magazines are quite likely to make more direct comparisions to Illustrator and even wonder why inkscape developers haven't take a closer look at the competition (despite it being expensive and impractical). Say it is useful, say it is powerful, as they are much harder to disagree with but "innovative" can be contentious and is a word to avoid.
Alan Horkan wrote:
I'd just like to point out, for the sake of others who might get a wrong idea from you, that Illustrator has no "warping nodes".
Unfortunately your are not correct.
The best I can manage at the moment is to show you this screenshot and try to direct your attention to the very hard to find feature (see the hand with a finger pointing down and beside it a box with a twirl coming out the corner) http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~horkana/inkscape/illustrator/Adobe-Illustrator-CS/A...
(found a better link)
From the middle to the left, see warp tool, and twirl
http://www.coe.fau.edu/abinder/handouts/Itools.htm
These are taken from Adobe Illustrator CS verison 1
I just went out and fired up a copy of CS2 here at work. Alan, thank you for pointing this out! Finally something neat from illustrator. :-)
This is a bit different than node sculpting. It doesn't require a node selection. There is a cursor with a center mark and an area delimited by a larger circle. As the user clicks and drags the paths are updated in real time. only the area within the larger circle is updated. And the amount of update seems to taper off toward the edge. There are various effects which can be applied to the current path. My take: we could do something like this by partially applying our non existent live effects to a path within an adjustable sphere of influence.
Aaron Spike
I have some thoughts to input re the UI
Remove the layer dialog from the bottom toolbar (which is redundant anyway)
It may be redundant for you, but many find it convenient to be able to do simple layer operations without opening the layers dialog.
this will always happen. IMHO it'll always be a good idea when creating tools indended for actual use, to offer users a choice. Don't give 'em something they can't get rid of, and by all means, allow for redundancy and let the user remove what isn't important. I'm just speaking from experience with UI's that have struck me as either more or less friendly. I could be wrong.
You are missing the point that N/A is horribly unclear and unhelpfully pedantic, technically correctly but more an unnecessary distinction.
Perhaps, but what would you suggest, specifically? "Nothing selected" would not fit there.
"None" as previously stated (a non selection isn't filled either) or leave it blank.
I noticed that when you bring up the dialog from the swatches, you can't set anything anyways (and rightly so), so why not use the standard disabled style (grayed out)?
If you want to talk about clunkiness Inkscape is fairly clunkey, Xara isn't all that pretty either, there is something that feels old about it.
I second this, and not just because I've gotten used to illustrator's UI. It's refreshing not to have dialogs obscuring the canvas, which i found was the most efficient way to use AI, but something about the Inkscape still needs work. I won't know just how hard it'd be until i start coding, but I'd recommend that the inkscape community be more willing to alter the UI without demanding overwhelming ... well ... demand, instead opting to try it and see if a certain change seems to make the design process more natural than it was before, or not.
As for the layers dialog. It seemed to me an incomplete version of something like illustrator's layers dialog, and I spoke to MentalGuy about working on it (with the aim of making it _better_, NOT like illustrator). It strikis me that the intended function of the layers widget is a subset of that of the dialog, the former intended for quick access, the latter for more powerful editing option. Isn't this the usual distinction between toolbar/dialog tools?
On 1/31/07, rain <meshach.mitchell@...155...> wrote:
"None" as previously stated (a non selection isn't filled either) or leave it blank.
I noticed that when you bring up the dialog from the swatches, you can't set anything anyways (and rightly so), so why not use the standard disabled style (grayed out)?
Because you need something to gray it out. Each kind of fill/stroke has its own display. Which of them to gray out? And if you gray out just empty widget, it won't look any different.
It's refreshing not to have dialogs obscuring the canvas, which i found was the most efficient way to use AI, but something about the Inkscape still needs work. I won't know just how hard it'd be until i start coding, but I'd recommend that the inkscape community be more willing to alter the UI without demanding overwhelming ... well ... demand, instead opting to try it and see if a certain change seems to make the design process more natural than it was before, or not.
And this is exactly what we do. I do, at least.
As for the layers dialog. It seemed to me an incomplete version of something like illustrator's layers dialog, and I spoke to MentalGuy about working on it (with the aim of making it _better_, NOT like illustrator).
Very good, it indeed has a lot of room for improvement.
It strikis me that the intended function of the layers widget is a subset of that of the dialog, the former intended for quick access, the latter for more powerful editing option. Isn't this the usual distinction between toolbar/dialog tools?
Ideally we try to make a function fully workable without a dialog. But it's not always possible. Layers is a good example of that - you can't implement a complete and convenient layers interface, with dragging etc., in a toolbar/statusbar. So yes, only a subset of layer functionality is available from the statusbar widget, containing hopefully the most often used functions.
On 1/30/07, Alan Horkan <horkana@...3...> wrote: http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~horkana/inkscape/illustrator/Adobe-Illustrator-CS/A...
(found a better link)
From the middle to the left, see warp tool, and twirl
http://www.coe.fau.edu/abinder/handouts/Itools.htm
These are taken from Adobe Illustrator CS verison 1
OK, I admit I wasn't aware of this - it wasn't available in my older version which I used until recently. It's indeed a good feature. Different from ours but having its own strengths (and limitations). We need to catch up, not by copying but by thinking how we can do the same better and more flexible.
bulia byak wrote:
On 1/30/07, Alan Horkan <horkana@...3...> wrote: http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~horkana/inkscape/illustrator/Adobe-Illustrator-CS/A...
(found a better link)
From the middle to the left, see warp tool, and twirl
http://www.coe.fau.edu/abinder/handouts/Itools.htm
These are taken from Adobe Illustrator CS verison 1
OK, I admit I wasn't aware of this - it wasn't available in my older version which I used until recently. It's indeed a good feature. Different from ours but having its own strengths (and limitations). We need to catch up, not by copying but by thinking how we can do the same better and more flexible.
I fired up my copy of AI10 and played with them. Here are some thoughts:
They have separate tools for warp, twirl, pucker, bloat, scallop, crystallize, and wrinkle... none of which you can configure (at least not that I could find in my version). I don't have my tablet at the office so I don't know if pressure makes a difference either. It seems like overkill (in typical AI fashion) to have SEVEN tools to accomplish these various (but somewhat similar) tasks.
My first question is, do we add this functionality to an existing tool or create a new "distortion" tool? Either way, I propose a bunch of modifiable parameters (including size of affected area, as it seems AI can't do that... at least not with the mouse). Oh and can't forget that if we could enable pressure and tilt interaction for tablets that would totally rock.
Anyway, if we go the parameter route, it also seems like a good time to perhaps look experimenting with a "preset" system. So people can save and load presets. If we make it very flexible we could ship with a bunch of presets and also have community contributed presets on the website that people could download.
I guess I look at this distortion/modification stuff in the way I'd love to see our brush capabilities go (when we can directly paint with objects/patterns/etc). I believe (easily) loadable sets of options, presets, and brushes will really help foster more community contribution. Some people may not know how to contribute, but, they may be very artistic and willing to give back. This seems to be the case for every other program with loadable brushes and such.
I'm not married to any of the above ideas or even believe that this is the best way to go, for the most part I'm just throwing a bunch of ideas out there to stimulate more conversation about this. :) Also, is it my imagination or does this seem like a prime candidate for the live path effects?
I will add items from the discussion to a wiki page once the conversation has built up a little more (and other thoughts/ideas are out there).
-Josh
On Mon, 29 Jan 2007, bulia byak wrote:
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 19:29:50 -0500 From: bulia byak <buliabyak@...155...> Reply-To: Inkscape User Community inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net To: Inkscape User Community inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-user] [Inkscape-devel] Baffling UI
On 1/29/07, jmak <jozmak@...155...> wrote:
Remove the layer dialog from the bottom toolbar (which is redundant anyway)
It may be redundant for you,
Would a beginner be particularly likely to use Layers at all?
Isn't there a risk that beginners will see the layer dropdown in the status bar and wonder why it doesn't do more? There no affordance, nothing leading user from the dropdown to the full dialog, it may well trap a few unwary users.
Dont take my word for it, ask someone working in HCI they are very cautious about this kind of redundancy.
but many find it convenient to be able to
you say many but it is hard for you to say who exactly those many people are as it is for jmak to conclusively prove he is right
do simple layer operations without opening the layers dialog.
If you can accept layers are a feature likely to be used by more advanced users wouldn't they very quickly want more than the dropdown provides and just use the keyboard shortcut to quickly pop open the dialog and use it instead?
The dropdown is an artifact of before the Layers dialog existed, if you keep too many of these inkscape will look even more busy and look increasingly like an airplane cockpit. You said yourself the status bar is short of space so you should seriously consider retiring the layer dropdown sooner rather than later.
On 1/29/07, Alan Horkan <horkana@...3...> wrote:
On Mon, 29 Jan 2007, bulia byak wrote:
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 19:29:50 -0500 From: bulia byak <buliabyak@...155...> Reply-To: Inkscape User Community inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net To: Inkscape User Community inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-user] [Inkscape-devel] Baffling UI
On 1/29/07, jmak <jozmak@...155...> wrote:
Remove the layer dialog from the bottom toolbar (which is redundant anyway)
It may be redundant for you,
Would a beginner be particularly likely to use Layers at all?
Isn't there a risk that beginners will see the layer dropdown in the status bar and wonder why it doesn't do more? There no affordance, nothing leading user from the dropdown to the full dialog, it may well trap a few unwary users.
Dont take my word for it, ask someone working in HCI they are very cautious about this kind of redundancy.
but many find it convenient to be able to
you say many but it is hard for you to say who exactly those many people are as it is for jmak to conclusively prove he is right
do simple layer operations without opening the layers dialog.
If you can accept layers are a feature likely to be used by more advanced users wouldn't they very quickly want more than the dropdown provides and just use the keyboard shortcut to quickly pop open the dialog and use it instead?
The dropdown is an artifact of before the Layers dialog existed, if you keep too many of these inkscape will look even more busy and look increasingly like an airplane cockpit. You said yourself the status bar is short of space so you should seriously consider retiring the layer dropdown sooner rather than later.
--
Thank you for further elaborating on the issue. Excellent points.
Jmak
On 1/29/07, Alan Horkan <horkana@...3...> wrote:
Isn't there a risk that beginners will see the layer dropdown in the status bar and wonder why it doesn't do more? There no affordance, nothing leading user from the dropdown to the full dialog, it may well trap a few unwary users.
It's not going to trap you until you have at least two layers. And you can't get the second layer except by going to the perfectly visible Layers menu and choosing "Add layer". And once you're in that menu, you see the "Layers" command opening the full-fledged dialog. So, I don't think an entrapment is likely to happen here.
do simple layer operations without opening the layers dialog.
If you can accept layers are a feature likely to be used by more advanced users wouldn't they very quickly want more than the dropdown provides and just use the keyboard shortcut to quickly pop open the dialog and use it instead?
Not at all. It doesn't follow. If a user is "advanced" it does not mean he will always choose the most "advanced" way to do what he needs to be done. He would likely prefer the most _convenient_ way instead. And for a subset of layer operations, the statusbar widget is often more convenient simply because it's always there in the predictable place.
On 1/29/07, bulia byak <buliabyak@...155...> wrote:
On 1/29/07, Alan Horkan <horkana@...3...> wrote:
Isn't there a risk that beginners will see the layer dropdown in the status bar and wonder why it doesn't do more? There no affordance, nothing leading user from the dropdown to the full dialog, it may well trap a few unwary users.
It's not going to trap you until you have at least two layers. And you can't get the second layer except by going to the perfectly visible Layers menu and choosing "Add layer". And once you're in that menu, you see the "Layers" command opening the full-fledged dialog. So, I don't think an entrapment is likely to happen here.
do simple layer operations without opening the layers dialog.
If you can accept layers are a feature likely to be used by more advanced users wouldn't they very quickly want more than the dropdown provides and just use the keyboard shortcut to quickly pop open the dialog and use it instead?
Not at all. It doesn't follow. If a user is "advanced" it does not mean he will always choose the most "advanced" way to do what he needs to be done. He would likely prefer the most _convenient_ way instead. And for a subset of layer operations, the statusbar widget is often more convenient simply because it's always there in the predictable place.
How do you know that this is the way professionals work? Have you ever worked in a graphic agency or some similar place? Have you ever worked under pressure when the client is panting behind your back and constantly complaining and whatever you are doing he always wants something different. Because this is how the real work environment look like. In this environment to survive the product you are using should be virtually invisible, completely out of the way, I mean it should be so smooth so natural that you shouldn't even notice it. This is why the interface is so important in a professional work.
On 1/29/07, jmak <jozmak@...155...> wrote:
Not at all. It doesn't follow. If a user is "advanced" it does not mean he will always choose the most "advanced" way to do what he needs to be done. He would likely prefer the most _convenient_ way instead. And for a subset of layer operations, the statusbar widget is often more convenient simply because it's always there in the predictable place.
How do you know that this is the way professionals work? Have you ever worked in a graphic agency or some similar place? Have you ever worked under pressure when the client is panting behind your back and constantly complaining and whatever you are doing he always wants something different. Because this is how the real work environment look like. In this environment to survive the product you are using should be virtually invisible, completely out of the way, I mean it should be so smooth so natural that you shouldn't even notice it. This is why the interface is so important in a professional work.
This seems to add very little to the discussion. Sorry but I don't see how what you say contradicts what I said (and what you quoted). Do you have any _specific_ counterarguments, apart from a "professionals know better" rant?
On 1/29/07, bulia byak <buliabyak@...155...> wrote:
On 1/29/07, jmak <jozmak@...155...> wrote:
Not at all. It doesn't follow. If a user is "advanced" it does not mean he will always choose the most "advanced" way to do what he needs to be done. He would likely prefer the most _convenient_ way instead. And for a subset of layer operations, the statusbar widget is often more convenient simply because it's always there in the predictable place.
How do you know that this is the way professionals work? Have you ever worked in a graphic agency or some similar place? Have you ever worked under pressure when the client is panting behind your back and constantly complaining and whatever you are doing he always wants something different. Because this is how the real work environment look like. In this environment to survive the product you are using should be virtually invisible, completely out of the way, I mean it should be so smooth so natural that you shouldn't even notice it. This is why the interface is so important in a professional work.
This seems to add very little to the discussion. Sorry but I don't see how what you say contradicts what I said (and what you quoted). Do you have any _specific_ counterarguments, apart from a "professionals know better" rant?
--
I wrote this because, you tried to justify the presence of the layer palette on the basis on an imaginary description of the professional user way of working. By the way, this is not a rant just an honest attempt to try to help improving inkscape.
On 1/29/07, jmak <jozmak@...155...> wrote:
I wrote this because, you tried to justify the presence of the layer palette on the basis on an imaginary description of the professional user way of working.
You must have misread me. It was Alan, not me, who tried to justify his point by alluding to an imaginary description of an "advanced" user. I just pointed out in response that it sounds strange to assume that such a user (or any user, for that matter) would always prefer a more clunky "advanced" solution (dialog) if a more convenient, albeit limited solution (widget) is right at hand.
On Tue, Jan 30, 2007 at 12:01:50AM -0500, bulia byak wrote:
On 1/29/07, jmak <jozmak@...155...> wrote:
I wrote this because, you tried to justify the presence of the layer palette on the basis on an imaginary description of the professional user way of working.
You must have misread me. It was Alan, not me, who tried to justify his point by alluding to an imaginary description of an "advanced" user. I just pointed out in response that it sounds strange to assume that such a user (or any user, for that matter) would always prefer a more clunky "advanced" solution (dialog) if a more convenient, albeit limited solution (widget) is right at hand.
This thread is getting overly argumentative. Some good points are being made, but please come to a concensus.
Bryce
P.S., perhaps these UI questions would be good to work through in person face to face at the Libre Graphics Meeting coming up?
I think this thread is building to be a wonderful example of how not to communicate with a community. I see that Bryce beat me to a cool down post. But I'm going to make my own attempt anyway. Here are some tips for efectively communicating with the Inkscape community.
1) Make your argument first and foremost without comparison. Really great features can stand on their own and are obviously great from the use cases users give. Most often comparisons won't strengthen your case. In fact they can often weaken your case because there is a built up resistance to this bandwagon sort of reasoning. Many people use Inkscape to excape from the software you want to compare it with. :-)
2) Don't assume that developers, users and industry professionals are mutually exclusive groups. Itch driven development means quite the opposite. Developers are users developing the software for their own uses. Some developers are industry professionals using Inkscape for their livelyhood daily. This also means that arguments that start with generalizations about user wants and expectations have to struggle against the fact that the users are developing the software the way they want it.
3) Don't assume that resistance to your idea indicates rampant disreguard for non-developer-users needs and wants. Many of the developers spend large amounts of time conversing with users in person, on IRC and on the mailing list. We know when issues are important because we can hear the consensus. As anecdotal evidence most of the features I have coded have been in direct responce to the needs and requests of users who came with polite and persistant concerns.
4) Street cred is earned, not demanded. :-) This is just a hard fact about community life. The project needs contributors to live and thrive. The more you involve yourself; the more you give of your own blood, sweat and tears, the more the community will respond to you. The great part is that simple contributions really do matter.
Aaron Spike
On Tue, Jan 30, 2007 at 07:58:49AM -0600, Aaron Spike wrote:
I think this thread is building to be a wonderful example of how not to communicate with a community. I see that Bryce beat me to a cool down post. But I'm going to make my own attempt anyway. Here are some tips for efectively communicating with the Inkscape community.
Very well said! Thanks, I've added this post to our FAQ, I think it has a lot of good advice:
http://wiki.inkscape.org:8080/wiki/index.php/FAQ#How_can_I_avoid_causing_a_f...
The only other point I'd add is that it's important to keep in mind that despite where we might differ in opinion, we all share some common goals - if nothing else, we all share the ambition to make Inkscape really good. So when things seem to get heated, take a breath and try to focus on any areas where there is _agreement_.
Many times the great ideas that all the participants have get lost in the heat of the argument, focusing instead on areas where there is disagreement. Focusing on the areas of agreement are more likely to produce productive, positive enhancements to the software and help us all achieve the common goals.
- Make your argument first and foremost without comparison. Really
great features can stand on their own and are obviously great from the use cases users give. Most often comparisons won't strengthen your case. In fact they can often weaken your case because there is a built up resistance to this bandwagon sort of reasoning. Many people use Inkscape to excape from the software you want to compare it with. :-)
- Don't assume that developers, users and industry professionals are
mutually exclusive groups. Itch driven development means quite the opposite. Developers are users developing the software for their own uses. Some developers are industry professionals using Inkscape for their livelyhood daily. This also means that arguments that start with generalizations about user wants and expectations have to struggle against the fact that the users are developing the software the way they want it.
- Don't assume that resistance to your idea indicates rampant
disreguard for non-developer-users needs and wants. Many of the developers spend large amounts of time conversing with users in person, on IRC and on the mailing list. We know when issues are important because we can hear the consensus. As anecdotal evidence most of the features I have coded have been in direct responce to the needs and requests of users who came with polite and persistant concerns.
- Street cred is earned, not demanded. :-) This is just a hard fact
about community life. The project needs contributors to live and thrive. The more you involve yourself; the more you give of your own blood, sweat and tears, the more the community will respond to you. The great part is that simple contributions really do matter.
Aaron Spike
Bryce
I just wanted to chime in with my .02 (as I didn't see it mentioned).
If you work with lots of groups, the layer selector widget is the best thing since sliced bread.
Example: Create a couple Objects and group them. Double click the group to enter it. You'll notice that the layer name (in the selector, not dialog) changed to the group name. If you are entering and exiting a lot of groups this enhances usability like you wouldn't believe. Grouping
-Josh
On Mon, 29 Jan 2007, bulia byak wrote:
look like. In this environment to survive the product you are using should be virtually invisible, completely out of the way, I mean it should be so smooth so natural that you shouldn't even notice it. This is why the interface is so important in a professional work.
This seems to add very little to the discussion. Sorry but I don't see how what you say contradicts what I said (and what you quoted). Do you have any _specific_ counterarguments, apart from a "professionals know better" rant?
This overly defensive attitude is suprisingly out of character for Inkscape. You are putting all the burden of proof on jmak but not providing much to back up your position.
Why not give it a try for a release, or for a while during the unstable time between releases? With more information fairer judgements without accusing people of ranting when all they have done is calmly and reasonably put forward their opinions.
On Jan 29, 2007, at 8:27 PM, jmak wrote:
How do you know that this is the way professionals work? Have you ever worked in a graphic agency or some similar place? Have you ever worked under pressure when the client is panting behind your back and constantly complaining and whatever you are doing he always wants something different. Because this is how the real work environment look like. In this environment to survive the product you are using should be virtually invisible, completely out of the way, I mean it should be so smooth so natural that you shouldn't even notice it. This is why the interface is so important in a professional work.
Why, yes I have.
I've worked in actual print shops, multimedia houses, game creators and publishers, and others. Although I'm mainly a software engineer now, I do have ability, experience, and formal training in the artistic side of things. I personally have a lot less professional graphic arts experience than many of the contributors to Inkscape, but this line of discussion tends to wander off into less productive areas. I believe that is one reasons many here do not fall back to arguments on 'qualifications'.
However, if we try to focus on hard reasoning for UI work, we can gain a lot more. You've raised several good points, and brought in some good things to look at.
However, there are more things to look at as far as UI design for "professional" apps goes. Usually commercial application development is driven by marketing and business far more than from the engineering side. For example, marketing might come in with requirements like "competitor X has n number of tools, so we need to have n plus one". Or they might need to add things to see people on upgrades. (In those cases they'll be looking more to the executives and IT heads making purchasing decisions than to the end users).
Another factor, and this definitely applies for Adobe, is that a company may make many sub-optimal UI choices in order to maintain consistency with other applications the company sells. They might even add or remove features from one product to be able to sell another product. Or they might do things to leverage their "suite" and block users from using competitor's products.
And yet another large factor is that different professionals have different needs. There is no single "professional" way to do something. And although people in different industries (animation, training videos, 2d games, 3d games, magazine ads, etc.) might have different sets of workflows, even people in the same shop working on the same type of art might take wildly different approaches.
One thing I've seen often with Inkscape is that people have problems with it's UI usually because it is different than they are used to. Not "worse", just "different". Then after a bit of using it, people have tended to like it even more than other tools.
However, we are very interested in things to actually improve workflow. "Do it because application X does it" is a reason that we generally don't like to follow. On the other hand, we don't want to be doing things differently just for the sake of being different. "Application X does this in this manner, and it helps me when I do step Y and then Z to get to end result A" is more of how we like to approach things"
On 2/10/07, Jon A. Cruz <jon@...204...> wrote:
On Jan 29, 2007, at 8:27 PM, jmak wrote:
How do you know that this is the way professionals work? Have you ever
worked in a graphic agency or some similar place? Have you ever worked
under pressure when the client is panting behind your back and
constantly complaining and whatever you are doing he always wants
something different. Because this is how the real work environment
look like. In this environment to survive the product you are using
should be virtually invisible, completely out of the way, I mean it
should be so smooth so natural that you shouldn't even notice it. This
is why the interface is so important in a professional work. Why, yes I have.
I've worked in actual print shops, multimedia houses, game creators and publishers, and others. Although I'm mainly a software engineer now, I do have ability, experience, and formal training in the artistic side of things. I personally have a lot less professional graphic arts experience than many of the contributors to Inkscape, but this line of discussion tends to wander off into less productive areas. I believe that is one reasons many here do not fall back to arguments on 'qualifications'.
However, if we try to focus on hard reasoning for UI work, we can gain a lot more. You've raised several good points, and brought in some good things to look at.
However, there are more things to look at as far as UI design for "professional" apps goes. Usually commercial application development is driven by marketing and business far more than from the engineering side. For example, marketing might come in with requirements like "competitor X has n number of tools, so we need to have n plus one". Or they might need to add things to see people on upgrades. (In those cases they'll be looking more to the executives and IT heads making purchasing decisions than to the end users).
Another factor, and this definitely applies for Adobe, is that a company may make many sub-optimal UI choices in order to maintain consistency with other applications the company sells. They might even add or remove features from one product to be able to sell another product. Or they might do things to leverage their "suite" and block users from using competitor's products.
And yet another large factor is that different professionals have different needs. There is no single "professional" way to do something. And although people in different industries (animation, training videos, 2d games, 3d games, magazine ads, etc.) might have different sets of workflows, even people in the same shop working on the same type of art might take wildly different approaches.
One thing I've seen often with Inkscape is that people have problems with it's UI usually because it is different than they are used to. Not "worse", just "different". Then after a bit of using it, people have tended to like it even more than other tools.
However, we are very interested in things to actually improve workflow. "Do it because application X does it" is a reason that we generally don't like to follow. On the other hand, we don't want to be doing things differently just for the sake of being different. "Application X does this in this manner, and it helps me when I do step Y and then Z to get to end result A" is more of how we like to approach things"
Good to hear that other, experience based opinions are start surfacing up. I completely agree with you that many features in professional software are motivated by marketing, the desire to overcome competition and consistency. I would like to add to this that most of the special features of professional applications are hardly used in a production environment. For instance, I've never used the effects filters or the mesh tool on the job (because the outcome is hard on the image setter). Vector-drawing apps are used mainly for logos and text effects or package design companies for drawing packages (also for illustrations but much less extent). A well designed, simple vector-drawing program can do these tasks without much ado. I even would say that give me a program with a good drawing tool, a good text tool, a good color management tool, a non-destructive editing feature, a good user-interface and perhaps a symbol feature tool, and I can happily function in any professional environment. On the other hand, I have some reservations about your suggestions regarding professional needs. For instance, I've never met anybody who didn't like clean interfaces, that is to say who was happy with a palette heavy desktop, when you have to spend half of your time dragging the over-sized palettes from side to side to be able to see the image you are working on. This also underlines the importance of priorities. Whatever we say about the professional apps, there is one thing they do well. Beyond all the fancy features the basic tools are well thought out and they are polished. And I think this is the area that Inkscape needs to be improved. It make no sense to keep churning out feature after feature until a the basic tools are not polished. In this context, I would say, Inkscape has good drawing tools, shape tools, but bad text tool, color management tool, and interface and it doesn't have any non-destructive editing feature at all. Until these basics are not brought up to professional level it makes no sense to keep adding additional features, especially if they are low on the priority list. It is not the sheer amount of features that make a program professional. It would make much sense to make a couple of Inkscape releases just improving on the basics without adding any new features. This is just my idea.
jmak
On Sat, Feb 10, 2007 at 02:17:08PM -0500, jmak wrote:
This also underlines the importance of priorities. Whatever we say about the professional apps, there is one thing they do well. Beyond all the fancy features the basic tools are well thought out and they are polished. And I think this is the area that Inkscape needs to be improved. It make no sense to keep churning out feature after feature until a the basic tools are not polished.
In this context, I would say, Inkscape has good drawing tools, shape tools, but bad text tool, color management tool, and interface and it doesn't have any non-destructive editing feature at all. Until these basics are not brought up to professional level it makes no sense to keep adding additional features, especially if they are low on the priority list. It is not the sheer amount of features that make a program professional.
It would make much sense to make a couple of Inkscape releases just improving on the basics without adding any new features. This is just my idea.
Prioritization of work in Inkscape is achieved not through a top-down mechanism, as it is in proprietary projects, but rather is more driven by the interests of the developers themselves.
This is due to the nature of how our all-volunteer project works. Consider that whereas in commercial software, value derives from the user, who pays some money that allows hiring engineers to make changes the users (in theory) need. In contrast, with projects like Inkscape value derives from the people who contribute to the software directly.
In order to maximize the value gained to Inkscape, we seek to encourage as many contributions as possible. Since many people have a desire to work on features, that is why feature growth tends to get highly prioritized.
I guess the thing to realize is that in open source projects like Inkscape, things are less of a "centrally-planned economy", and more "market driven". So while we do things like the Roadmap to help provide guidance and synchronize things overall, we find it's better to have a strong (if a bit chaotic) market rather than following a plan to the letter.
Thus, the best way to influence priorities of Inkscape is to just get involved and contribute work that nudges us in the direction you think we should go. :-)
In terms of making Inkscape more suitable for the professional user, we are fortunate in already having a huge database of ideas on improvements needed, in our bug and RFE tracker. So right now the biggest thing we need in order to make Inkscape more suitable for professionals is bug fixes.
If you can code (even just a little!) I would strongly urge you to consider helping with bug fixing, especially if you are on OSX or Windows.
If you don't code, you can still help a great deal by reviewing bugs in the bug tracker, try to reproduce them, and gather as much additional information as you can.
Bryce
Quoting jmak <jozmak@...155...>:
Good to hear that other, experience based opinions are start surfacing up. I completely agree with you that many features in professional software are motivated by marketing, the desire to overcome competition and consistency. I would like to add to this that most of the special features of professional applications are hardly used in a production environment.
...
Well, I'm sorry but I have to disagree with most of your conclusions here. Starting with the assertion that experience based opinion are just now starting to surface. They have been around this project for years. I know people tend to not blow their own horns, but there has been a lot of good experience you've missed by glossing over them.
You mentioned multiple windows, but I have seen many people who prefer to have them around (there was a huge outcry when we dropped the legacy tool palette window) and those who don't. You also had a misleading dichotomy of needing to drag them around. Good OS's allow for simple control of such things, and even on Windows good apps allow for a single key toggle for those. Inkscape is among those apps.
Additionally, a large portion of work can be done with no extra dialogs called up. So saying that Inkscape requires that is very misleading.
And on one extreme, I've even worked with someone who preferred to have literally hundreds of text editor windows open and tiled all at once. Just because you've not experienced as much does not mean that other people don't have different preferences.
And I very much disagree about profesional apps being well thought out and polished. Just as a minor example, Photoshop for the longest time mangled indexed color images. And instead of fixing things, they just flipped the palettes when loading and saving. Things looked pretty for sales presentations, but completely broke down once someone needed accuracy.
You might want to drop in on the Jabber channel so you can discuss some of your opinions on things. Also, there's a huge difference between what people see on the outside of a program and what is actually going on inside. Very often new features just appear out of work on fixing existing problems. Assumptions on what is hard and what is easy are often wrong when it comes to software development. So what seems to you to be the incorrect way to develop software just might not be.
On 1/29/07, Alan Horkan <horkana@...3...> wrote:
The dropdown is an artifact of before the Layers dialog existed, if you keep too many of these inkscape will look even more busy and look increasingly like an airplane cockpit. You said yourself the status bar is short of space so you should seriously consider retiring the layer dropdown sooner rather than later.
A much better solution that would satisfy everyone: a small layer-managing toolbar, with the current layer widget and perhaps some more buttons for common tasks such as adding/deleting layer and opening the Layers dialog. This toolbar would be placeable anywhere on the bars, next to other toolbars (similar to Xara's) or removed altogether. Sample applies to the selected style indicator. By the default they would be placed where they are now, but draggable anywhere.
On Mon, 29 Jan 2007, bulia byak wrote:
On 1/29/07, Alan Horkan <horkana@...3...> wrote:
The dropdown is an artifact of before the Layers dialog existed, if you keep too many of these inkscape will look even more busy and look increasingly like an airplane cockpit. You said yourself the status bar is short of space so you should seriously consider retiring the layer dropdown sooner rather than later.
A much better solution that would satisfy everyone: a small layer-managing toolbar, with the current layer widget and perhaps some more buttons for common tasks such as adding/deleting layer and opening the Layers dialog.
We were asking that the layer widget be removed from the status bar for a while, but by all means add the proposed alyer toolbar if there is enough demand for it after the layer dropdown has been removed. (Or if there is a lot of call to have the widget back the change could be reverted.)
This toolbar would be placeable anywhere on the bars, next to other toolbars (similar to Xara's) or removed altogether.
unfortunately the toolbars in Gtk do not make it easy to put toolbars side by side as other programs are able to, which makes what you suggestion not impossible but substnatially more trouble to implement.
Hi,
I vote for keeping the layer drop down menu in the toolbar. I don't switch much between layers, and having it in the statusbar is just perfect for me!
Thanks.
G
--
We were asking that the layer widget be removed from the status bar for a while, but by all means add the proposed alyer toolbar if there is enough demand for it after the layer dropdown has been removed. (Or if there is a lot of call to have the widget back the change could be reverted.)
This email was independently scanned for viruses by McAfee anti-virus software and none were found
On Mon, 29 Jan 2007, Bryce Harrington wrote:
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 12:09:29 -0800 From: Bryce Harrington <bryce@...983...> To: Inkscape User Community inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net Cc: inkscape-devel@...84... Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] [Inkscape-user] Baffling UI
Thanks Olivier for providing feedback on this.
On Sun, Jan 28, 2007 at 11:52:09PM +0100, Olivier Lefevre wrote:
Thanks for the explanations. So if I create the rectangle and immediately switch to the select tool yes I get to see its properties and change them. It did not occur to me to try the selector because the object seemed to have disappeared as soon as I clicked elsewhere. I'll be damned if I know why it was white: I have _viewed_ some SVG documents in Inkscape before but this is my first stab at creating one.
In the status bar I would suggest not using F and S but spelling out
Always avoid abbreviations (and acronyms, and annoying alliteration also).
Fill and Stroke in full: there is enough space for that and if you are a newcomer and both F and S say "N/A" it is not obvious what they refer to. Besides it seems weird for the stroke to be N/A: I can understand
seems weirder to me that the foreground and background colour indicators are repeated on both the tool options bar and the status bar. doing the same thing in two different places is generally discouraged by usability guidelines (there are exceptions where it may be worthwhile but that's guidelines for you).
If you really wanted to include the labels there would be enough room to include the full words Fill and Stroke, in the toolbar but not in the status bar.
Would it perhaps be clearer to get rid of the labels entirely and just show a rectangle or other shape in the fill color, with a border in the stroke color (if any)? Then we could eliminate the need to localize at all, which could be beneficial in languages where the translation for 'fill' or 'stroke' may end up being a longer word.
If you don't entirely get rid of it wouldn't "None" be a clearer label than "N/A"? I realise that it might not be pedantically accurate to the underlying implementation but making things clear to the user is more important right? Also real words are much easier to translate than acronyms or abbreviations.
In place of the single letter "O" for opacity it might be better to use a checkboard icon like GIMP does for the "Lock Alpha Channel" checkbox in the layers palette.
On 1/29/07, Alan Horkan <horkana@...3...> wrote:
seems weirder to me that the foreground and background colour indicators are repeated on both the tool options bar and the status bar.
These are fill and stroke, not "foreground and background". More importantly, the indicator in the controls of some tools is NOT the same as the one in the statusbar. It does not display the style of the selected object, but shows the tool style - the style that the new objects created by this tool will have. That's a totally different thing. And that's why not all tools have it but only object-creating tools.
If you don't entirely get rid of it wouldn't "None" be a clearer label than "N/A"?
No, because None is already used. None means no fill/stroke on selected object, N/A means no object selected.
On Mon, 29 Jan 2007, bulia byak wrote:
On 1/29/07, Alan Horkan <horkana@...3...> wrote:
seems weirder to me that the foreground and background colour indicators are repeated on both the tool options bar and the status bar.
These are fill and stroke, not "foreground and background". More
I corrected myself later, but that slipped through
importantly, the indicator in the controls of some tools is NOT the same as the one in the statusbar. It does not display the style of the selected object, but shows the tool style - the style that the new objects created by this tool will have. That's a totally different thing. And that's why not all tools have it but only object-creating tools.
now I remember, there is a setting to make the tool colours independent of so those two would be different if I had it set that way.
If you don't entirely get rid of it wouldn't "None" be a clearer label than "N/A"?
No, because None is already used. None means no fill/stroke on selected object, N/A means no object selected.
You are missing the point that N/A is horribly unclear and unhelpfully pedantic, technically correctly but more an unnecessary distinction.
On 1/29/07, Alan Horkan <horkana@...3...> wrote:
You are missing the point that N/A is horribly unclear and unhelpfully pedantic, technically correctly but more an unnecessary distinction.
Perhaps, but what would you suggest, specifically? "Nothing selected" would not fit there.
On Mon, 29 Jan 2007, bulia byak wrote:
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 22:03:07 -0500 From: bulia byak <buliabyak@...155...> Reply-To: Inkscape User Community inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net To: Inkscape User Community inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-user] [Inkscape-devel] Baffling UI
On 1/29/07, Alan Horkan <horkana@...3...> wrote:
You are missing the point that N/A is horribly unclear and unhelpfully pedantic, technically correctly but more an unnecessary distinction.
Perhaps, but what would you suggest, specifically? "Nothing selected" would not fit there.
"None" as previously stated (a non selection isn't filled either) or leave it blank.
On 1/30/07, Alan Horkan <horkana@...3...> wrote:
"None" as previously stated (a non selection isn't filled either) or leave it blank.
None of these (sorry for the pun) would work. The difference between nothing-selected and no-fill is not an insignificant technicality at all. It's crucial for the user, not only developer. And blank would just look broken.
participants (13)
-
unknown＠example.com -
Aaron Spike -
Abrolag -
Alan Horkan -
Andy Richardson -
Bryce Harrington -
bulia byak -
Gijsbert Stoet -
jmak -
Jon A. Cruz -
Joshua A. Andler -
Olivier Lefevre -
rain