As a long time Macromedia Freehand user I was curious about the latest release of Inkscape, which I have been testing for about a week. These are my observations. Inkscape's interface is so unintuitive that it almost hurts. The layout and the look and feel of the various panels and dialog boxes are awful. They lack coherence, functionality and are badly implemented. 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. The font palette looks like it was borrowed from an office suite. The implementation of gradients are so weird that hard to describe. The Export Bitmap dialog box is poorly designed, the window wouldn't even close after saving files. The program lacks the tool to group panels into different panel groups. 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. Also when export text on path, it exports the path as well, which is unacceptable. 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. I also couldn't rename pattens but stuck with the generic names. I missed the preset zoom settings at the left bottom corner, as well. 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. 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. By the way, I liked the Tracing Bitmap tool. What impressed me in Inkscape is the ingenious and interactive ways it allows to edit shapes. Also the fact that I could stroke path with gradient without first expanding it. I found great that I could export a selection rather than the entire ardboard; this feature dearly missed even in adobe illustrator. I also liked the options on the upper menu bar. This helps setting parameters effortlessly and it eliminates the need of dealing with additional dialog boxes which are always nuisances. I liked the layers and the fact that they are collapsible�-one more thing less cluttering the work environment. Would be nice if I could move object from one layer to the other with a click of a mouse. 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.
jozsefmak
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?
The font palette looks like it was borrowed from an office suite.
Could you elaborate? What's wrong with it specifically?
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!
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
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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.
It did come across as pretty critical, but we know you meant well. =) In terms of Inkscape becoming a competitor with the big guys... honestly, it already is a strong competitor, as 90% of my print work is done in Inkscape now (as well as a few other people I know). The only reason anything is taken into Illustrator at this point is to get the color (proper CMYK) and other minor print related prep issues taken care of. Other than that, it's fulfilling my needs very well.
What hard to understand is why open source developers don't 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).
I think that they do understand the importance of user-friendly interfaces, but what is friendly to one person may not be to another. Also, I think that the interface for Inkscape suits it very well, and given my own transition from Illustrator (10 years of getting used to doing it Adobe's way), it took quite a bit of getting used to. And I have actually grown quite fond of it over time... yeah it could use a little work (as could most apps, commercial or OSS), but there's only so much man/brain power that can be devoted to each area... unless _you'd_ like to help with the UI that is. =)
The comparison to Firefox/Thunderbird is a little unfair though, as web browsers and email clients have fairly standardized interfaces (for web browsers it's usually Back, Forward, Stop, Reload, address bar, etc)... if you check out Xara, which is a commercial vector app, our interface is much more like theirs than Adobe's. So I think user-friendliness is partially a matter of opinion & experience. And no, I'm not saying Inkscape's interface is anywhere near perfect (I have my own list of issues too, as we all do), but it does it's job quite well as is.
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.
I agree that the dialog boxes can be a pain... no question. Especially if you use it on Windows instead of Linux (haven't tried Mac). Because in the dialog department, Linux is waaay more useable (the dialogs stay on top all the time). Hopefully at some point the interface will take advantage of the "tear away"/dockable dialogs, like GIMP. In my opinion the usability will go through the roof when that happens... but it's only a minor inconvenience at this point because it just takes a little more time to get to the dialogs you need to. Either way, there are a number of things that you use dialogs for now, that will hopefully be shifted to "on canvas" types of options in the future to reduce that dialog clutter.
The interface _is_ still under development, and probably will be for a long time (almost all UIs push to evolve over time). I can tell you that it is leagues ahead of Sodi Podi in this dept though (as popular consensus would say... although we may be a little biased here =)
If you have any suggestions or features you'd like to see, please don't hesitate to let us all know. If you do plan on suggesting, you may want to check the feature requests of the project at sourceforge though (search for what you like to see, if it's there add your .02, if not, submit a request). At the very least, you can just add a "me too" comment to let the devs know what people find to be important.
Thanks for taking the time to comment and give some feedback!
-Josh
I think that they do understand the importance of user-friendly interfaces, but what is friendly to one person may not be to another.
I agree one hundred percent that user-friendliness is a matter of experience. When I went to graphic design school and I had my first experience with Illustrator it was neither user friendly nor �non user friendly�. When I finished the school I developed a feel for the adobe way of doing things. We can easily agree that this feature or that feature would be better implemented here or there but the fact remains that we keep finding easy what we got used to. And 99% of graphic design schools teach adobe programs. So the overwhelming majority of designers already developed a feel for doing things the Adobe way. This tells me that anyone who wants to develop a similar product has to do it the way the majority finds user-friendly. Those few who are on this mailing list and willing to experiment with open source products do not represent the majority. In commercial environment, for instance, I have never met anyone who knew any open source product. The reality is that most graphic artist are stressed out and the least, they want to do is to frustrate themselves with some exotic program. Open source developers a bit like people who speak a tone language (Chinese, Japanese) and want to learn English. They can tell you how hard it is for them. But they have no choice but to learn it if they want to communicate with the rest of the world.
Regards, jozsefmak
adobe programs. So the overwhelming majority of designers already developed a feel for doing things the Adobe way.
No. Illustrator is a major player, but not in so monopolistic a position as e.g. Photoshop. Freehand, CorelDraw, Canvas, Xara and others are some real competition with lots of faithful fans, and they are very different.
open source product. The reality is that most graphic artist are stressed out and the least, they want to do is to frustrate themselves with some exotic program.
And yet new apps appear all the time.
Open source developers a bit like people who speak a tone language (Chinese, Japanese) and want to learn English. They can tell you how hard it is for them. But they have no choice but to learn it if they want to communicate with the rest of the world.
Nope. You got it all wrong, sorry. We're not speaking a different language nor learning yours. We're just _inventing_ a new language as we go, and we want to reuse the best things from other languages in it, as well as apply our own ideas. We do this because we like inventing languages, and because we clearly see that the existing languages are not ideal. If we do our job really well, more and more people will start speaking our language.
No one wins over the competition by being a copy. The only way to win is to be better.
Up spake bulia byak:
Open source developers a bit like people who speak a tone language (Chinese, Japanese) and want to learn English. They can tell you how hard it is for them. But they have no choice but to learn it if they want to communicate with the rest of the world.
Nope. You got it all wrong, sorry. We're not speaking a different language nor learning yours. We're just _inventing_ a new language as we go, ...
You're inviting a comparison to Esperanto :-)
Nope. You got it all wrong, sorry. We're not speaking a different language nor learning yours. We're just _inventing_ a new language as we go, ...
You're inviting a comparison to Esperanto :-)
Yeah, except that we live in a world where ALL languages are invented, there are no natural ones. In that world, I would choose Esperanto any day, because it's so logical and easy to remember :)
Trent Buck wrote:
Up spake bulia byak:
Open source developers a bit like people who speak a tone language (Chinese, Japanese) and want to learn English. They can tell you how hard it is for them. But they have no choice but to learn it if they want to communicate with the rest of the world.
Nope. You got it all wrong, sorry. We're not speaking a different language nor learning yours. We're just _inventing_ a new language as we go, ...
You're inviting a comparison to Esperanto :-)
Nah,
We're Java supplanting Esperanto/Smalltalk. ;-)
On Tue, 14 Dec 2004, Trent Buck wrote:
Nope. You got it all wrong, sorry. We're not speaking a different language nor learning yours. We're just _inventing_ a new language as we go, ...
You're inviting a comparison to Esperanto :-)
It's not a bad comparison. The thing is, we're competing against Klingon and Loglan.
-mental
Jozsef Mak wrote:
I agree one hundred percent that user-friendliness is a matter of experience. When I went to graphic design school and I had my first experience with Illustrator it was neither user friendly nor “non user friendly”. When I finished the school I developed a feel for the adobe way of doing things. We can easily agree that this feature or that feature would be better implemented here or there but the fact remains that we keep finding easy what we got used to. And 99% of graphic design schools teach adobe programs. So the overwhelming majority of designers already developed a feel for doing things the Adobe way.
Actually, some of that depends on when those designers went to school. Though Adobe dominates the scene now, they did not always do so. Also, the "Adobe" way has also changed over the years. Some graphic/art academies were even heavily into Corel Draw, and not even Freehand. (Oh, and for reference, I'm down in Southern California, and took art at the same college as Rob Liefeld)
Yes, I have formal art training, and even did graphics work for game companies before settling into software and multimedia development instead. One thing I have seen, however, is that true professionals get to use whatever tools will make their work easier, and thus learn more than one. Much like any decent 3d artist will end up being able to shift from Maya to Max or vice versa. Again, much of the current Inkscape UI does not resemble Illustrator, however it does resemble Xara, which is not open source, but is another commercial product. However, it is by a UK developer, so is not as known here.
But to keep on track... I belive the main focus is to make Inkscape a premier SVG editor. This is slightly different than making it a general vector graphics program that happens to use SVG. So again, much of the focus is on creating a workflow that enables users (note that there are several classes) to be able to create SVG graphics in the most efficient way while still enabling the full power of SVG when desired. The focus is not on creating a product to lure graphic artists off of Illustrator.
But... again, we are not out to just reject existing programs or approaches. If users of Inkscape find certain things help their workflow and certain things hinder it, we are very interested in hearing from them. Some of what you have pointed out is already on the roadmap to be addressed, but then some other parts are more convention or work habits learned through different paths. I believe that Bulia and I are two of the developers more focused on UI. Some things we agree on, while other things we hold opposite opinions of. I belive that some of your issues end up in our disputed areas.
The good news, though, is that I'm of the general belief that in UI design if there are different ways to do something, then we should support them. While I'm not saying we should implement everything under the sun in as many complex ways as possible, I do know that different approaches work differently for different users at different times. Menu items versus hotkeys is one example. Full-screen landscape web browser windows versus partial screen portrait layout is another. I think we've even bounced around the idea of making some preference sets to switch UI 'style' the same way word processors could be set to emulate others (Wordstar, emacs, etc. in Word for example). Though we're a bit off from that point, the more input we can get on what workflows different people like, the better we can support them.
So what can help the most is precise details on why certain things are liked or disliked. Jumping in the inkscape jabber room is also a good way to get ideas bounced off of others and get things stirred up. Skimming the RFE's is another. Entering new RFE's is again another way to get some kind of action on requests. Try to get things narrowed down, and think also of the distinction between 'how' you think we need to do something, and 'what' that something to be achieved is. For example 'you should add alt-shift-ctrl-5' is a low-level 'how' to do something while 'I'd like a simple hot-key combination to invoke a regular expression replace' is a bit higher level 'what'.
Hmmm... now that I think about it, I also think there's been mention now and then of getting some "Inkscape for Illustrator users" document done. Perhaps you might have suggestions for some things that should go in there, and some things that should be added or changed in Inkscape itself.
On Tue, 14 Dec 2004, Jozsef Mak wrote:
I think that they do understand the importance of user-friendly interfaces, but what is friendly to one person may not be to another.
I agree one hundred percent that user-friendliness is a matter of experience. When I went to graphic design school and I had my first experience with Illustrator it was neither user friendly nor �non user friendly�. When I finished the school I developed a feel for the adobe way of doing things. We can easily agree that this feature or that feature would be better implemented here or there but the fact remains that we keep finding easy what we got used to. And 99% of graphic design schools teach adobe programs. So the overwhelming majority of designers already developed a feel for doing things the Adobe way.
These people are _more than welcome_ to continue using Adobe software. Adobe puts out good products and, while expensive, they're very capable and much more powerful than what's available in Open Source today. If the artist has invested their education into Illustrator, then _no one_ is asking them to change. It's never been Inkscape's goal to clone Illustrator, nor to try to win over their userbase (well, maybe one or two).
However there are still others for whom Illustrator is not an option, either by preference (such as users of software that Illustrator has pushed to the sidelines), availability (it doesn't run on Linux), or principle (some people believe strongly in Open Source). These are the types of people Inkscape shoots for.
We recognize that a lot of people know Illustrator, so we will occassionally adopt an approach that is similar to it, but we try to keep that to a last resort. Inkscape was founded for the purpose of exploring new ideas in drawing tools, not to merely clone something.
For people who want something that provides 100% compatibility with Illustrator, you're in luck - Illustrator is still actively maintained and can be easily purchased. ;-) If your need is for an Illustrator-alike for Linux, I suggest emailing Adobe and lobbying for it. They've provide support for Acrobat Reader on Linux so they're at least aware of Linux; they may simply need more evidence of a market for it on Linux.
Early on in Inkscape we talked about userbase size, and adopted a certain philosophy. For proprietary software, certainly a large userbase size is good, since it means you have more money earned. But for an open source project, sheer size alone doesn't gain you anything. Indeed, sometimes small is beautiful. So for Inkscape, it's the quality of users that we want, not quantity. We want people like you who come join the lists and offer new ideas, and I think we're much more likely to gain that quality of user from doing more than just copying another program. People who don't have time to learn a new tool probably also don't have time to contribute interesting new ideas, anyway.
Here's another way to think of it. In a sense, Adobe is "stuck" by the need for backwards compatibility. Their customers are not going to want to buy new versions if they've adapted to a particular feel, like you point out. Since they've earned the lion's share of the market for drawing tools, this may have resulted in an environment where innovative new ideas simply can't gain enough sunlight to grow. Inkscape is not shackled by an entrenched userbase nor cornered by the need to sell copies, so the best thing we could do to benefit the artistic community is to deliberately *not* follow Illustrator and provide an alternative that allows unconventional ideas a place to prove themselves (and subsequently get adopted by Illustrator if they prove good).
Anyway, hope this doesn't come off too long and ranty, but I do feel strongly that directly cloning Illustrator is *not* the right way to go. We want to be an interesting alternative, not a boring replacement. ;-)
Bryce
From: Bryce Harrington <bryce@...69...> Reply-To: inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net To: inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: RE: [Inkscape-user] My impressions on Inkscape Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 01:12:33 -0800 (PST)
These people are _more than welcome_ to continue using Adobe software. Adobe puts out good products and, while expensive, they're very capable and much more powerful than what's available in Open Source today. If the artist has invested their education into Illustrator, then _no one_ is asking them to change. It's never been Inkscape's goal to clone Illustrator, nor to try to win over their userbase (well, maybe one or two).
However there are still others for whom Illustrator is not an option, either by preference (such as users of software that Illustrator has pushed to the sidelines), availability (it doesn't run on Linux), or principle (some people believe strongly in Open Source). These are the types of people Inkscape shoots for.
We recognize that a lot of people know Illustrator, so we will occassionally adopt an approach that is similar to it, but we try to keep that to a last resort. Inkscape was founded for the purpose of exploring new ideas in drawing tools, not to merely clone something.
Designers have no choice but to learn what is available. As I said before, the overwhelming majority of schools offer nothing but adobe stuff. I myself too studied adobe but later I learned Freehand, which is much better thought out program. Most of the reviews, I read about it confirm this. Freehand is a more recent application than illustrator; when it was created the developers took a good look at adobe (I assume this) and they decided what is worthy for adapting and what is for discarding. This way they created an awesome application, which is distinct but still easy to adapt even for those who use adobe. Inkscape, in some ways, is in a similar situation as Freehand was a few years ago. It is new, it doesnt have to worry backward compatibility issues and free to think out a development strategy which can make it flexible (in terms of usability) and in the mean time it can devise its own character. In my view, it makes lots of sense to take a good look at the commercial programs, adapt what is great in them, and discard the rest. This way of approaching to developing Inkscape would not make it a clone; far from it. This is just a smart way of taking advantage of the technology, which is already available for use. Take as an arbitrary starting point the ancient Greek art. The Romans came, took from the Greek art what fitted to their cultural tradition, enriched it and further developed it, in line with their social and empirical aspirations. This way they developed a distinct roman style. Then the Christians came, took the roman art and transformed it into what we now call Christian art. (This is a bit simplified description of the events nonetheless it shows my point) None of these styles can be called clones. This is how things work in life. Even the graphical desktop evolved along this line. Say, first was the Mac desktop. Then Microsoft took (stole?) the idea and made Windows out of it. Now, it is Linux that strives to measure up (at least in terms of usability) to Windows. And I think when the dust settles the Linux desktop too will develop into a very distinct graphical interface.
Regard, jozsefmak
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On Tue, 14 Dec 2004, Jozsef Mak wrote:
Inkscape, in some ways, is in a similar situation as Freehand was a few years ago. It is new, it doesn�t have to worry backward compatibility issues and free to think out a development strategy which can make it flexible (in terms of usability) and in the mean time it can devise its own character. In my view, it makes lots of sense to take a good look at the commercial programs, adapt what is great in them, and discard the rest. This way of approaching to developing Inkscape would not make it a clone; far from it.
Yup, exactly, you got it. We want to synthesize good ideas from a lot of sources and hopefully produce something which pushes the ball forward in a few areas, too. :-)
If you look through Inkscape's Wiki, you can see some pages that people have written that review various applications. It would be wonderful to flesh those out further, and add more pages about additional applications.
Bryce
On Tue, 14 Dec 2004, Bryce Harrington wrote:
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 12:15:18 -0800 (PST) From: Bryce Harrington <bryce@...69...> Reply-To: inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net To: inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: RE: [Inkscape-user] My impressions on Inkscape
On Tue, 14 Dec 2004, Jozsef Mak wrote:
Inkscape, in some ways, is in a similar situation as Freehand was a few years ago. It is new,
I'm pretty sure Freehand has been around a long time (the wikipedia article about Illustrator talks about Aldus Freehand on the Macintosh many moons ago) but that doesn't make any of your other comments less true. There are clearly times when back compatibility needs to be sacrificied to make progress and reach a wider audience.
it doesn�t have to worry backward compatibility issues
and free to think out a development strategy which can make it flexible (in terms of usability) and in the mean time it can devise its own character. In my view, it makes lots of sense to take a good look at the commercial programs, adapt what is great in them, and discard the rest. This way of approaching to developing Inkscape would not make it a clone; far from it.
Yup, exactly, you got it. We want to synthesize good ideas from a lot of sources and hopefully produce something which pushes the ball forward in a few areas, too. :-)
If you look through Inkscape's Wiki, you can see some pages that people have written that review various applications. It would be wonderful to flesh those out further, and add more pages about additional applications.
I spent a while adding comments recently on a variety of applicatiosn but I'd appreciate comments on the strenghts of FreeHand in particular because I have only tried it briefly and found it extremly weird in comparision to applications I had used before, only my brief use of Flash prepared me for it.
I'm trying to avoid negative comments about other applictions or dwelling for too long on what Inkscape does better than these other applications because (it is unnecessary and) negative comparison advertising is not a great idea.
- Alan
From: Alan Horkan <horkana@...3...> Reply-To: inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net To: inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: RE: [Inkscape-user] My impressions on Inkscape Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 23:37:26 +0000 (GMT)
On Tue, 14 Dec 2004, Bryce Harrington wrote:
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 12:15:18 -0800 (PST) From: Bryce Harrington <bryce@...69...> Reply-To: inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net To: inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: RE: [Inkscape-user] My impressions on Inkscape
On Tue, 14 Dec 2004, Jozsef Mak wrote:
Inkscape, in some ways, is in a similar situation as Freehand was a
few
years ago. It is new,
I'm pretty sure Freehand has been around a long time (the wikipedia article about Illustrator talks about Aldus Freehand on the Macintosh many moons ago) but that doesn't make any of your other comments less true. There are clearly times when back compatibility needs to be sacrificied to make progress and reach a wider audience.
it doesnt have to worry backward compatibility issues
and free to think out a development strategy which can make it
flexible (in
terms of usability) and in the mean time it can devise its own
character. In
my view, it makes lots of sense to take a good look at the commercial programs, adapt what is great in them, and discard the rest. This way
of
approaching to developing Inkscape would not make it a clone; far from
it.
Yup, exactly, you got it. We want to synthesize good ideas from a lot of sources and hopefully produce something which pushes the ball forward in a few areas, too. :-)
If you look through Inkscape's Wiki, you can see some pages that people have written that review various applications. It would be wonderful to flesh those out further, and add more pages about additional applications.
I spent a while adding comments recently on a variety of applicatiosn but I'd appreciate comments on the strenghts of FreeHand in particular because I have only tried it briefly and found it extremly weird in comparision to applications I had used before, only my brief use of Flash prepared me for it.
I'm trying to avoid negative comments about other applictions or dwelling for too long on what Inkscape does better than these other applications because (it is unnecessary and) negative comparison advertising is not a great idea.
- Alan
Hi Alan,
I have been using Freehand for many years (I even wrote a small book on it, though it has never been published) so I can tell you a few things what I find great about this program. It is true, as you said that the program had been around before Macromedia bought it. I guess, Aldus Freehand couldnt attract enough users and when macromedia bought the app it could safely ignore the small number of users and could go ahead designing a great product out of it. But even a fine program as Freehand is now, couldnt manage to grab more than 25% of the market (Ive learned this recently by reading an interview with macromedia marketing official) due to Adobes monopoly of the marketplace.
Freehand have all the bells and whistles that most programs have in this category. (Bezier curves, pencil, eraser, shapes and so on.) Among all the programs Ive ever used, Freehand has the best implementation of gradients and color management; plus the finest interface.
From the gradient options you can chose Linear, Radial, Logarithmic, Contour
and Cone. You can further modify each of these by applying Normal, Repeat, Reflect and Auto size modifiers to the gradient styles. In addition, the gradients allow you to interactively modify the style within the object using small handles. With this you can create a great variety of patterns including abstract ones and also 3D effects. (Freehand also has a sophisticated 3D tool, as well, which is similar to Corels but more advanced).
The other great feature of Freehand is its color management system. The program has all the standard palettes from which you can drag and drop colors into objects or into the swatches palette; you can also save, export, import palettes and when you drag a color to the swathes palate you have a choice to save it as process color or spot color. But my all time favorite is the Tint palette. You drag a color to the tint palette window and the program automatically splits the color into shades, like 10%, 20%, 30% and so on. Then, you can apply the shades to any object. You more appreciate this feature if you compare it to Illustrators way of doing the same. In illustrator, first you create a color, drag it to the color swathes palette, then double click on it, a window pops up where the color must be made global and then a slider appears where you can adjust the shades. Big difference eh?
Lastly, let me tell you about Freehands interface. Macromedia created a panel layout that is similar to Firefox side panel, which is clipped to the side of the screen. Freehand layout is like this. In this side panel you find all the palettes, which of course, can be customized according to your own needs. With a click of a button you can also close and open the side bar any time. But because the palettes and the windows are compact and economically laid out you seldom want to close them. The best among all these panels is the Property panel. In the property panel you can set, edit and undo virtually all attributes or transformations of the object. Here are only a few of the attributes you can edit in this panel. Fill color, stroke size and color, gradient settings, texture settings, brush settings, transparency, filters and so on. This means that you hardly ever have to bother look for windows and dialog boxes in other places.
I still could go on and on telling you about Freehands great features such as the Symbols, Drop Shadows, the various Embossing options such as Inset Emboss, Raised Emboss, Outer Bevel, Inner Bevel or its great pattern creating capabilities with the Bend, Duet, Ragged and Sketch options. But the best way to appreciate this fine program is to use it. I think Inkscape developers could find great ideas in this application just by playing around with it.
Regards, jozsefmak
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Jozsef Mak wrote:
The other great feature of Freehand is its color management system. The program has all the standard palettes from which you can drag and drop colors into objects or into the swatches palette; you can also save, export, import palettes and when you drag a color to the swathes palate you have a choice to save it as process color or spot color. But my all time favorite is the Tint palette. You drag a color to the tint palette window and the program automatically splits the color into shades, like 10%, 20%, 30% and so on. Then, you can apply the shades to any object. You more appreciate this feature if you compare it to Illustrator’s way of doing the same. In illustrator, first you create a color, drag it to the color swathes palette, then double click on it, a window pops up where the color must be made global and then a slider appears where you can adjust the shades. Big difference eh?
This is actually one thing that is on the map for implementation at some point. Well, not quite the tint palette explicitly, but pallets and color sets or schemes in general.
On Thu, 16 Dec 2004, Jozsef Mak wrote:
Among all the programs I�ve ever used, Freehand has the best implementation of gradients and color management; plus the finest interface.
From the gradient options you can chose Linear, Radial, Logarithmic, Contour and Cone. You can further modify each of these by applying Normal, Repeat, Reflect and Auto size modifiers to the gradient styles. In addition, the gradients allow you to interactively modify the style within the object using small handles. With this you can create a great variety of patterns including abstract ones and also 3D effects. (Freehand also has a sophisticated 3D tool, as well, which is similar to Corel�s but more advanced).
From the above it sounds like Freehand should be analyzed for ideas on
redesigning the Gradient Editor.
Does anyone happen to have a copy of this, that they could make some screenshots or elaborate on Jozsef's comments above?
Bryce
Bryce Harrington wrote:
On Thu, 16 Dec 2004, Jozsef Mak wrote:
Among all the programs I�ve ever used, Freehand has the best implementation of gradients and color management; plus the finest interface.
From the gradient options you can chose Linear, Radial, Logarithmic, Contour and Cone. You can further modify each of these by applying Normal, Repeat, Reflect and Auto size modifiers to the gradient styles. In addition, the gradients allow you to interactively modify the style within the object using small handles. With this you can create a great variety of patterns including abstract ones and also 3D effects. (Freehand also has a sophisticated 3D tool, as well, which is similar to Corel�s but more advanced).
From the above it sounds like Freehand should be analyzed for ideas on redesigning the Gradient Editor.
Does anyone happen to have a copy of this, that they could make some screenshots or elaborate on Jozsef's comments above?
I have a copy of MX. I will take some screenshots and post them on my site like I did for illustrator. I'm taking requests....
Jon
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Jon Phillips a écrit :
Bryce Harrington wrote:
On Thu, 16 Dec 2004, Jozsef Mak wrote:
Among all the programs I�ve ever used, Freehand has the best implementation of gradients and color management; plus the finest interface.
From the gradient options you can chose Linear, Radial, Logarithmic, Contour and Cone. You can further modify each of these by applying Normal, Repeat, Reflect and Auto size modifiers to the gradient styles. In addition, the gradients allow you to interactively modify the style within the object using small handles. With this you can create a great variety of patterns including abstract ones and also 3D effects. (Freehand also has a sophisticated 3D tool, as well, which is similar to Corel�s but more advanced).
From the above it sounds like Freehand should be analyzed for ideas on redesigning the Gradient Editor.
Does anyone happen to have a copy of this, that they could make some screenshots or elaborate on Jozsef's comments above?
I have a copy of MX. I will take some screenshots and post them on my site like I did for illustrator. I'm taking requests....
Jon
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There are also two screenshots of the gradient tool on macromedia webpage : http://www.macromedia.com/software/freehand/productinfo/features/static_tour...
On Thu, 27 Jan 2005, Pierre Boulenguez wrote:
There are also two screenshots of the gradient tool on macromedia webpage : http://www.macromedia.com/software/freehand/productinfo/features/static_tour...
Thanks, I've added it at the bottom of the ObjectManager wiki page (I didn't spot a more appropriate location - if there is a place we're capturing Gradient Editor design notes, lemme know.)
Bryce
Bryce Harrington wrote:
On Thu, 16 Dec 2004, Jozsef Mak wrote:
Among all the programs I�ve ever used, Freehand has the best implementation of gradients and color management; plus the finest interface.
From the gradient options you can chose Linear, Radial, Logarithmic, Contour and Cone. You can further modify each of these by applying Normal, Repeat, Reflect and Auto size modifiers to the gradient styles. In addition, the gradients allow you to interactively modify the style within the object using small handles. With this you can create a great variety of patterns including abstract ones and also 3D effects. (Freehand also has a sophisticated 3D tool, as well, which is similar to Corel�s but more advanced).
From the above it sounds like Freehand should be analyzed for ideas on redesigning the Gradient Editor.
Yes, it does sound like that. A biggie for me would be the contour gradient. AFAIK this isn't in the SVG spec directly, but would you clever developer people be able to devise a way of producing the same effect with the spec as it is? That would make my month ; ).
Does anyone happen to have a copy of this, that they could make some screenshots or elaborate on Jozsef's comments above?
We have a copy. I've never really used it that much (I didn't like it, and I prefer Linux anyway), but if I have some time tonight I'll take a look and see if I can get some shots.
Jon
Yes, it does sound like that. A biggie for me would be the contour gradient. AFAIK this isn't in the SVG spec directly, but would you clever developer people be able to devise a way of producing the same effect with the spec as it is? That would make my month ; ).
hey
what is wrong with simple defining a shape, its clone, a larger one, and fill it with, let`s say circular gradient for a start. then, defining a special inkscpae tag, that would take care of contourness... and then just wait `till it`s accepted into a standard or simply supported in scribus... :)
implementing a series of partial gradients or calculating a multi-stop gradient would probably be harder...
regards, bostjan
Quoting Jozsef Mak <j_mak3@...9...>:
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).
Well, though it may be the general case, I do know that most of the developers on Inkscape do care about user interface. One issue with engineers in general, however, is that most engineers do not know UI, and should stay away from it. :-)
However, I have quite a bit of experience in UI Design, and in using various products over the years including being a beta tester of MacroMind 3D. One thing that sometimes comes in to play is that a particular company will do things a certain way not because it's necesarily the best UI, but because it's either the way that other of their apps work or in order to maintain compatibility with prior versions (Adobe is one company guilty of both of these).
Illustrator compatibility and ease migration for Illustrator users is a strong consideration that is covered often by the developers. However... in general there tends to be a stronger priority to trying to hit the "best" UI as opposed to just doing the "most compatible" UI. That is, the general rule I've seen followed here is that we try to act similar to other illustrations packages (and more than just Illustrator, like Xara), but if there's something that makes workflow better, we'll choose that over mere compatibility.
The 'Similar Applications' section of the Other Projects page in the wiki is one resouces the developers use to keep an eye on UI issues. http://www.inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OtherProjects
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.
Actually, those are not always an annoyance, depending on the person using them. There are often a few different ways to achieve things, and different people can gain maximum usability from different approaches and implementations.
However... your main point about not interrupting workflow is a good one. That's actually the bottom line tends to rule. If something gets in the way of using the program, we want to clean it up.
I can cover a few more of your points in detail later. But I think I can summarize best by saying that we are very much interested in workflow issues of Inkscape, and are only part of the way there in cleaning up things from back when we first branced from SodiPodi. The more feedback and interractions we can get with different types of users like yourself, the better we can tune the interface and maximize the program's usability.
On Mon, 13 Dec 2004, Jozsef Mak wrote:
What hard to understand is why open source developers don�t 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).
I don't think it's that they don't recognize the importance or that they are attempting to be cruel to users or anything, and I also disagree with the prevailing opinion that "coders don't understand usability design". Rather, I think it's because a) GUI frameworks have a default generic layout design that is easy to use, b) this generic layout is created to be easy for the programmer, not necessarily to make it easy for the programmer to make it easy for the user, and c) 'user-friendly' is a qualitative thing, not easily measurable, so it is hard to determine a given change has improved or reduced it.
However, that does not mean that it can't be done, only that it will require some effort to achieve. Just because it isn't the way one would wish does not mean it can't be that way, only that people (perhaps including you) needs to participate in improving that aspect. Whether that actually occurs depends on many factors, one of which is an attitude that it _can_ be done.
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.
One thing you'll notice as you get your feet wet in the project is that there is actually an on-going effort towards migrating functionality out of dialogs and into the canvas. For example, it used to be that text editing was always done in a dialog, however now this has been reworked such that some editing can be done right on the canvas.
It may look to you at first blush that there are too many dialogs or that they get in the way, but before claiming that no one recognizes the importance, please try out the release from a year ago and notice that there has been significant work towards improving usability. (Also notice that it used to be pretty common to be able to crash Inkscape by accidentally setting dialogs into invalid states; a lot of those crashes have gotten cleaned up.) Usability and dialog design isn't something that can be fixed overnight, and it requires people who care about it to dedicate themselves towards achieving it.
I actually would say that a number of Inkscape people are focused on usability, dialog layout, etc. as very important. Not everyone works on these issues, because there are other things (performance, new features, packaging, bugfixing, etc.) that are also considered to be very important, but we definitely have people like Bulia and Alan who are very gung ho and vocal on usability.
Regarding dialog design, in fact some of us are working on a major rework of the dialog code, to convert it from C/Gtk+ to C++/Gtkmm, because the current codebase is so verbose that it's difficult to maintain and improve. Once it's converted into C++, the belief is that it will be simpler to make large scale dialog design improvements. For instance, currently to implement something like dockability, you'd need to write separate code for each of the dozen dialogs, and keep all that code updated in sync as bugs are found and fixed. With Gtkmm, we'll be able to write that code once in a base class and maintain it in a single place.
This rework of the code is not currently being directed at changing the design/layout, though, but if you feel it to be important and would like to get involved with this (providing mockups of dialogs or even directly coding), this would be a good opportunity for that. Let me know, and join the inkscape-developer@ list. :-)
Bryce
On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:14:30 -0500, Jozsef Mak <j_mak3@...9...> wrote:
I apologize if I sounded too critical; the criticism intended to be constructive.
We appreciate that :)
From the point of view of the designer the dialog boxes, panels, popup windows are always nuisances.
With that I agree, the less dialogs the better
They interrupt the workflow and disrupt concentration.
Not really interrupt, because most of our dialogs are non-modal; they just hang there but do not stop you from working on the canvas. And yet they do take space and may be rather clumsy to handle.
Therefore, it makes sense to design then as inconspicuous as possible.
And to make as much functionality as possible to the canvas, which is what we are doing.
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.
Well, there's a much more simpler explanation: lawsuits are started by lawyers, and lawyers just don't see any deeper than the interface :))
My criticism of the Property panel can be illustrated comparing it with Freehand's. In Freehand when I draw, let's say, a square, in the property window I find the following entries; the name
...in obj props, we have ID and will soon have tilte&description metadata...
and the size of the object
...and that need not be in any dialog! We have this in the controls panel for Selector tool, in the main window. And the fields are editable right there. Much more convenient IMHO.
also shows that it is stroked or filled with color; if stroke and fill is present it shows the color of them.
Fill & stroke are not universal; some objects cannot have them. So it makes a lot of sense to separate them into the Fill and Stroke dialog as we did.
Yet, to _watch_ the style of the selected object, we need something simpler and smaller, and I plan to add a "current color widget" to the editing window which will reflect the color of the selected object(s). Later a palette with color swatches will also be added to the bottom of the window, similar to what Skencil and Xara use.
If I want to change the color of any of the properties I just click on the small swatch next to the property's name, the color swatches pops up and I can chose a new color.
And we don't need to click anything. If you have Fill & Stroke open, you just select stuff and drag the RGB/HSV/whatever sliders immediately. Very convenient to not have to go through an additional click stage for each object.
But let's 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
Same here, click the gradient button in Fill&stroke and edit your gradient, nothing additional pops up.
but in the same property panel where I can change every possible parameters of the gradient.
Well, admittedly we also have a separate Gradient Editor dialog, which indeed is a nightmare (don't even bother criticizing it :) It will have to be redesigned. And yet, even as is, it lets you do the stuff you need.
This is just one thing; in the property window I can change, transform and undo virtually every feature that the object can have.
I'm far from convinced that cramming everything into one dialog is such a good idea.
With the examples, I could go on and on.
And I guess I could go on and on responding either, "it's equally if not more convenient here", or "we're already planning to address that" :))
I'm not saying this is useless, of course. When you are specific, it's a pleasure for me to respond to you; this gives me ideas and feedback which I value.
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.
Honestly, I think this introduces an additional abstraction layer which is unnecessary. When I select an object and want to color it blue, my mental process does not go like (1) "aha, i need to change a property of the object, let me go to Properties, and there I need to select Color," etc. Instead, it's much simpler and faster: (2) "I want it blue, blue is color, gimme the color thing!" In Inkscape, the interface is already somewhat closer to the (2) mentality than to (1), and we plan to move it further in that direction by making color feedback and selection even closer and more immediate. What you propose would push us back to (1) which I don't think is a good idea at all.
The font panel. If you open openoffice's font panel and Inkscape's 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.
I still don't quite see your point, but I want to add that we're planning to make that dialog mostly unnecessary by moving its controls to the Text tool's controls panel (which is still empty now, but that's because we simply did not yet have the resources for filling it).
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.
I think it's wrong to force some specific font size on users. If 8pt is readable for you, just change that in your GTK settings and it will affect all GTK apps. I'm sure lots of people will complain loudly if we force our own idea of font size on them, and I think they will be right. (In fact this happened already for some elements of the interface.)
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 didn't 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."
Well, incomplete implementation is easier to fix than no implementation, right? So please feel free to make any specific suggestions. The chances of a suggestion to be implemented are directly proportional to how well you manage to convince us in its usefulness and inversely proportional to how difficult it is to implement :)
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.
That's mostly the way it is. Interfaces of apps are still very different and each one requires some getting used to. And graphic/design apps with innovative UI appear _all the time_ and tend to make quite some buzz. After all, designers and artists have sufficient IQ to master a new interface paradigm if it really is better than what they had before.
You seem to not realize that "according to their own likings" is not necessarily bad. A program is unusable not when it's designed to its developer's liking, but when it's just badly designed - when it's not "liked" well enough even by its creator. _I_ love Inkscape and I use it for real design every day, and I also spend a lot of effort on its usability to make it maximally likeable _for myself_. And I think this shows. Though on the other hand, our resources are limited and things don't progress as fast as I would like, and this also shows.
As for borrowing from "industry standard" apps, we have this simple policy in effect: When you don't know or don't care how to do something, copy Illustrator. When you _do_ care and _do_ use and test some feature extensively and _do_ have ideas for how to do it in the best way possible, go ahead and implement your vision, no matter how different from Adobe it will end up looking.
And one last thing. I haven't used Freehand, but I have used Illustrator a lot. I don't consider it very usable at all. It's very clumsy, indirect, and unintuitive. There are much better designed programs out there, such as Xara X which (I admit) has influenced Inkscape (through me). And by now, _in some areas_ I consider Inkscape to be noticeably more convenient to use than even Xara :)
On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 00:22:18 -0400, bulia byak <buliabyak@...155...> wrote:
On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:14:30 -0500, Jozsef Mak <j_mak3@...9...> wrote:
[...]
But let's 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
Same here, click the gradient button in Fill&stroke and edit your gradient, nothing additional pops up.
If you don't mind, I will give my opinion about Inkscape UI, as a simple hobbyist user who never used Freehand, Illustrator or others. I do not want to start a flame war, but only expose what is only my opinion. At first, Inkscape _seems_ really unfriendly, some would say messy. But, after using it for a few hours, read and followed the tutorials (I think it is really important to read these as they are really well done), it is definitively logical and easy to use (beside the already well known problems such as the gradient editor). IMHO, what makes the user thinks at first that Inkscape is not so user-friendly, are the icons : they are not looking very nice (may be the black border around all of them could be reduced, to make them look brighter), and it tends to be difficult to identify what function is hidden behind some of them. One example could be the fill and stroke icon : even after some hours of using Inkscape, I still have to look around to find the icon for 'color'. In this case, may be a colourfull icon would be better than the grey one currently in place. I'm pretty sure that a nicer icon set would greatly improve user experience and usability feeling, without changing anything else. I fully agree with you when you say that inkscape UI follow mental process ("I want it blue, blue is color, gimme the color thing!" ), and it would be even more the case with nicely designed icons, so you don't have to look around to find the "color thing".
Frederic
Up spake fredd:
I'm pretty sure that a nicer icon set would greatly improve user experience and usability feeling, without changing anything else. I fully agree with you when you say that inkscape UI follow mental process ("I want it blue, blue is color, gimme the color thing!" ), and it would be even more the case with nicely designed icons, so you don't have to look around to find the "color thing".
On icons, my preferred white-on-black theme makes many of them invisible[0]. I know there's not much that can be done about this; most of the `bad' icons are of a black path. It's just something for the icon artists to think about :-)
[0] http://twb.ath.cx/~twb/img/xwd/2004-12-14T22%3a05%3a36%2b1100.png
IMHO, what makes the user thinks at first that Inkscape is not so user-friendly, are the icons : they are not looking very nice (may be the black border around all of them could be reduced, to make them look brighter),
But we DON'T have any border around icons. Especiilly "black border." Can you better explain what you mean, with a screenshot maybe?
I'm pretty sure that a nicer icon set would greatly improve user experience and usability feeling, without changing anything else. I fully agree with you when you say that inkscape UI follow mental process ("I want it blue, blue is color, gimme the color thing!" ), and it would be even more the case with nicely designed icons, so you don't have to look around to find the "color thing".
I would agree with that. Some icons are decent and some are ugly, and they all certainly lack unity. But hey, this is exactly the place where an artist could help the project! Just grab share/icons/icons.svg and draw.
Now, if you draw just one or two icons and they are definitely better than what we have now, that would be a good contribution already. But the really huge and long-standing contribution would be to draw the entire icons set in one common style. If you can draw (and enjoy drawing) very clean, artsy, and cool icons, you may be qualified for the task. Personally, I like Macromedia icons that they have in their products - they are really tastefully done.
Drawing an entire icon set for Inkscape is a major artistic challenge, so don't think of it if you can't spend ample time working on the project. Also be prepared to fight with nasty critics (such as myself), and to give in sometimes and make the requested change if the consensus seems to be that a change is needed. And to maintain your work for at least some time, making new icons and responding to requests from users. But for all this, you will enjoy quite some fame, your work being prominently featured on thousands of desktops all over the world, and on many screenshots all over the net! :)
If you are interested, just do a few sample icons and post them here for discussion.
On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 07:45:25 -0400, bulia byak <buliabyak@...155...> wrote:
IMHO, what makes the user thinks at first that Inkscape is not so user-friendly, are the icons : they are not looking very nice (may be the black border around all of them could be reduced, to make them look brighter),
But we DON'T have any border around icons. Especiilly "black border." Can you better explain what you mean, with a screenshot maybe?
Sorry, the term 'border' was not the good one. In fact, some icons, for example group and ungroup or all clones related ones have heavy black lines around the shapes (for group and ungroup, the strokes around the circle and the rectangle are wide, as is the red dashed line around the group icon) making the icons look dark and not so neat. I also find the rotating and mirroring icons a bit agressive visually (at least for me :) because of the black and yellow mix.
I'm pretty sure that a nicer icon set would greatly improve user experience and usability feeling, without changing anything else. I fully agree with you when you say that inkscape UI follow mental process ("I want it blue, blue is color, gimme the color thing!" ), and it would be even more the case with nicely designed icons, so you don't have to look around to find the "color thing".
I would agree with that. Some icons are decent and some are ugly, and they all certainly lack unity. But hey, this is exactly the place where an artist could help the project! Just grab share/icons/icons.svg and draw.
I fully agree with that, and be assured that if I were an artist, I would have tried to design a new iconset. Unfortunately, I am the only person to appreciate my artistic work :) However I will give it a try, who knows...
I'm pretty sure that a nicer icon set would greatly improve user experience and usability feeling, without changing anything else. I
Inkscape uses a lot of custom widgets which may make what I'm about to suggest more difficult one would that Inkscape would eventually support Icon theming like other gtk applictions so that theming could be left to outside users and projects who are really intersted in that sort of thing.
- Alan H.
participants (14)
-
unknown＠example.com -
Alan Horkan -
Bryce Harrington -
bulia byak -
fredd -
igzebedze -
Jon A. Cruz -
Jon Phillips -
Jonathan Leighton -
Joshua A. Andler -
Jozsef Mak -
MenTaLguY -
Pierre Boulenguez -
Trent Buck