http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/User:Davidhewitt

(VERSION 3)

very elaborate, have you created the blueprint too? Just create a short description and link to the wiki page https://blueprints.launchpad.net/inkscape

I do now: (thanks for that)....
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/inkscape/+spec/inkscape-bottom-toolbar
Anyway well see how it flies....

It may seem elaborate but it makes allot of sense to me (obviously).
Allot of that stuff is logical and very useful to have on hand....(to me anyway)
That's basically what i would like to see down there....

Some of that looks pretty good, some of it seems somewhat unnecessary in light of other aspects of the ui we already have.
for instance:

• 2& 3 arent necessary, simply click the color block for the fill or stroke to open the dialog on the relevant page.
• 4 isnt required as we now have a swatch for no style, which you can click/shift click toclear the fill or stroke. (this is more intuitive than a red button too, since your selecting to set the style to non the same way you select any other style)
• I'm not 100% sure i understand what 7 is meant to do, is it a kind of an automated color dropper?
• Think it would be nice if the thickness indicator could do the mouse wheel behaviour we have on the zoom indicator etc, not sure we need the arrows tho, space down there is kinda limited. Are you aware that you can right click the size indicator to get some common sizes?
• 10 is on the far right of the selector toolbar, I'd question it being something thats required in all contexts. or changed often enough to deserve the real estate down on the bottom there.
• 11 doesnt make sense, if an object has a fill applied it gets filled, if it doesnt it doesnt, its nothing to do with if its closed or not.
• 12, interesting concept to have a swatch pallette derived from the document, i think having it autogenerated and listed in the selection of palettes available would be enough tho without having a button.
• 13, this is a duplicate of the bottom button of the tools toolbar, which is always there, why do we need the duplication?

nicely done mockup tho, and some interesting ideas.

Sorry for the long winded reply but its itemized...

Simarilius wrote:Some of that looks pretty good, some of it seems somewhat unnecessary in light of other aspects of the ui we already have.
for instance:
[*]2& 3 arent necessary, simply click the color block for the fill or stroke to open the dialog on the relevant page.

This is true, but in this model i did remove the words...Stroke and fill ETC So there has to be some indication as to what each line down there is for...perhaps the words are more obvious but then again i did add a fair bit down there so this was an attempt to save space....and I think in about 2 seconds any user would realise what a little pen and paint bucket meant down there and so it would serve this purpose just as well as the words...

Simarilius wrote:[*]4 isnt required as we now have a swatch for no style, which you can click/shift click toclear the fill or stroke. (this is more intuitive than a red button too, since your selecting to set the style to non the same way you select any other style)

For this point I half agree with you but only half...
It is true that space is limited on the bottom line but I do not think the shift click thing is intuitive at all for every one but then again it is very easy to get used to and does help minimize the UI so you do have a point in this respect....
But personally I don't think it hurts to have an extra individual element next to each swatch respectively..... especially since these can be made very small.
Part of the reason i would like to see these is that I prefer a UI to be keyboard independent as much as is practically possible, not everybody wants one hand straddling the keyboard at all times and for functions that you have to access at all times.... so i think provided the impact on UI real estate is not much the developers should try to optimize the UI so as to enable people to operate ink scape 99% of the time keyboard free.

Simarilius wrote:[*]I'm not 100% sure i understand what 7 is meant to do, is it a kind of an automated color dropper?

This icon only applies to a clear fill state...I.E (an invisible object...no fill),
So that the user can create transparency effects more easily...
I.E all you would need to do to achieve a transparent burred object (that would blur the underlying details but not have a colour itself) would be clear the fill property press this button and then play with any filters like blur gradiated lightening or darkening ETC.....

Simarilius wrote:
[*]Think it would be nice if the thickness indicator could do the mouse wheel behaviour we have on the zoom indicator etc, not sure we need the arrows tho, space down there is kinda limited. Are you aware that you can right click the size indicator to get some common sizes?

I think you do make a good case for eliminating the need for little arrows...
But i also like having the ability to type a number in there.... and this would not necessarily take up any more space...
I.E even if you did leave out the arrows you could still have the menu you mention and then add the ability to select this number and type over it....

Simarilius wrote:
[*]10 is on the far right of the selector toolbar, I'd question it being something thats required in all contexts. or changed often enough to deserve the real estate down on the bottom there.

Again i half agree...
The buttons i have added are kinda big but i think necessary...
And i think this problem, IE of lack of space is partly due to the current ink scape icons which (although well done from an arty perspective..no doubt done by a talented individual) are excessively large....
This has to be un-done!!!
IE as ink scape develops they are going to want to add stuff..inevitably and the only practical way to keep things clean in the face of adding more (some of it really important) is to compact the icons....
And designing small yet clear corel type icons which are consistent in theme and easy to read is a very very difficult task...
And frankly there is not many designers out there that could do this well...(there is alot more that could do a decent job on big icons but then again these do place unreasonable imitations on the continued development of the UI generally and should be changed sooner rather than later....

So i do agree that perhap in its current state 10 and 11 are big but i still think they are necessary.
But i also think new more reasonably sized icons would solve both these issues.

Simarilius wrote:
[*]11 doesnt make sense, if an object has a fill applied it gets filled, if it doesnt it doesnt, its nothing to do with if its closed or not.

No so! currently my inkscape has the default set to:
1)no fill and a
2) black stroke...

yet when i create an object it manifests to totally defy the stated default settings as follows:

1) fill: "unset" and
2) Stroke: "unset." (So you would expect it to be invisible in this case anyway.)

and yet the object appears on the screen as:
1) filled black
2) and no stroke

!!!!!!very confusing...perhaps this is a bug....
3 different sets of properties none of which match.....

And while we are on this topic (if one is intent on minimizing the UI) why have 2 separate fill and stroke indicators?...
one for the default properties and another for selected objects as is currently the case....
This is a waste of UI real estate.... if the current fill and stroke boxes down the bottom were re-designed properly perhaps we could eliminate the need for 2 seperate sets of fill and stroke indicators.....
I was going to do this actually but i already put so much down there i didnt want to scare people off by changing too much....
But to be honest i think the dual set of fill and stroke indicators is not necessary.....and confused the hell out of me for quite a while to be honest....

Simarilius wrote:
[*]12, interesting concept to have a swatch pallette derived from the document, i think having it autogenerated and listed in the selection of palettes available would be enough tho without having a button.

I do think a button is mandatory for this as the practicality of having only the colours you are using is lost if they are buried in a huge list of other irrelevant colours....!
I don't know how other people work but i think for a decent percentage of users the current palette system is irrelevant!
I.E alot of people create their own colours and simply don't ever use pre-defined colours...(i'm one)...
And when ever someone creates a new colour they are probably annoyed that there is 30 colours down the bottom they will never use and yet the one they just created has to be added to a list to be visible and only then at the very far end where they may have to scroll across for a mile before they get to it?
There is little sense in this...
The button is mandatory...

Simarilius wrote:
[*]13, this is a duplicate of the bottom button of the tools toolbar, which is always there, why do we need the duplication?

Oh your right....... i forgot to scroll down and see what big clunky icons may be hidden off the extent of my screen...
Sorry about that....LOL

Simarilius wrote:
nicely done mockup tho, and some interesting ideas.

No probs thanks for complimenting the mock up anyway...and whist I don't think my ideas are perfect the discussion will helpfully hone it and the UI generally...
perhaps it would be a better use of my time if i started working on new icons?

Theres just been a huge discussion on the list about the icons and they are most likely about to change. I wouldnt spend your time doing icons without looking up that discussion from the mailing list.

P.S.. I have updated my proposal now to reflect our discussion you will now see it is actually now smaller than the existing layout!.....Thanks very much for your feedback as it helped me allot to develop the ideas there and remove and streamline the dead wood there...

Cool...tell me though who or where should i post in regards to me possibly helping out with icons.....

As i believe i can help ...to even reduce the current icons down to a more practical size....
ie I was going by the old corel standard which was 22x20 but with most icons not touching the edges..
So realistically 20x18 px max....
For each icon....i have started on the main tool box and have done the first 5 or 6 icons to a rough quality...
although i did intend to hone them to perfection but if you are interested in seeing this let me know and i will post it up somewhere (let me know where.)
Im quite good at this type of thing.....(icons) i believe i could reduce the whole icon set this way.

If the powers that be are interested...
who should i contact?
Where is this discussion you speak of?

It looks to me as though inkscape's icons may have been created with ink scape itself.... IE they look to have been created in a vector app....

But i assume that these are raster images for the purposes of rendering ETC....
IE that even though they were created in a vector app that the icon set itself is composed of tiny raster images (as one would suspect....)

The only reason i mention this is that i saw some talk of vector icons ETC and i didn't want to muck around with the existing graphics if creating a smaller set is just a matter of re-rendering the original source vector files at a smaller size....
But having said that i doubt this is the case as getting tiny raster icons to look great (i imagine would require manual tweaking).......(i digress)

I did notice also that the developers build has changed the resizing of the screen so that it is now possible...IE in V.46 the inkscape window seemed to be locked to a minimum size displaying all the side bar icons....
But in the new build one is able to reduce this a little smaller and any icons swallowed up are available in a fly-out at a smaller size......(but not all of them as i was not able to reduce the screen enough to get more than about half of these icons to be moved to the flyout....
Anyway it appears as though someone has already started creating a smaller set of icons for this flyout.....
co-incidentally about the same size as the ones i was working on....

I would suggest that it would make allot of sense for now to just maintain the same icons as inkscape currently has and simply reduce their size.... as they still seem to work well enough at this reduced size......
This way nobody has to argue about what to change it to.....

I saw alot of debate about other icon sets but not with reference to their actual size....which is the main point as i see it...
Most talk revolved simply about getting a consensus with other open source apps.... regardless of the fact that the options offered up were just as bulky and over-sized as ink scape's currently are....
Who cares if they are not the same as this that or the other if in any case they are so huge they look like "jumbo blocks"...

its one thing to argue about aesthetics and cross application uniformity but NEVER at the expense of practicalities....
Its one thing to get arty people to design icons but it would be foolish to let artists mandate oversize icons so they can better express themselves....

These people perhaps want uniformity so that this can help bring these apps closer together (i have read allot about an open source suite ETC)....I don't know much about this but if some of these other applications also have jumbo icons then that is not a valid reason to like wise utilize icons that look like they have been designed for the sight impaired. (perhaps these could be maintained for this purpose....)
But generally more modestly sized icons should be the first priority and if other applications still have jumbo icons then they should follow ink scape's lead and not the other way around.....

sorry for the long post anyway: i had allot flying around in my head there and i had to exorcise it..
Anyway where is this big discussion re-icons taking place?

Inkscape icons are kept in a svg file, and they are vector format. All toolbars draw icons from that file and resize it according to your toolbar size preferences (in dev builds).

Lately the discussion was about replacing the current icon set with icons that follow Tango guidelines http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Icon ... Guidelines

The discussions are held at the inkscape dev mailing list, here is a forum history of that list http://www.nabble.com/Inkscape---Dev-f1926.html

No offense, David, but from what I gather your additions seem like they would aid CorelDraw users moving over to Inkscape more than they would help new or seasoned Inkscape users. Is that what you are after in your proposal?

I'm not sure I agree on the whole size issue, their a pretty good size for me. What size screen are you using?

heathenx wrote:No offense, David, but from what I gather your additions seem like they would aid CorelDraw users moving over to Inkscape more than they would help new or seasoned Inkscape users. Is that what you are after in your proposal?

(No-matter im not usually offended unless offense is intended...)
And your observations are perhaps not with-out merit as i did cut my teeth on corel draw...

But having said that i don't think your point is an inditement on my proprosal...
I.E Seasoned users i assume are seasoned precisely because they have labored to become adept at exactly the current state of the UI ETC....

Does this validate the current UI....not really.... its simply the way things are currently....people adapt to it...
The fact that my ideas are perceived to (or do actually) tend to address issues that corel users may have with inkscape is not a bad thing.....(weather or not this is the case i dont know...but even if it is the case i still dont see this as problematic).

But this issue aside i like to look at every point on its own merits and not to generalize...

You may very well be right...
But i can not see how this change can be anything but good
the updated version i have up now is actually smaller than the current UI area and contains more....

The additional features do address issues that i find very confusing about inkscape.....and if this is also true for allot of corel users then this does not detract from the idea it validates it....

I would say that if you are right then this is all the more reason why it should be done....(this strengthens the case for the changes)...

Simarilius wrote:I'm not sure I agree on the whole size issue, their a pretty good size for me. What size screen are you using?

This is irrelevant to me as monitor size is not something that would trip me up.

I have just placed inkscape right next to (lined up)2 other applications i just happen to have been using....
and counted how many icons on the side bars correspond to the 15 visible inkscape icons....
The results:
In the same space on screen:
1)inkscape 15 icons
2)paint shop pro 20 icons
3)xara extreme 21 icons (actually 20 but there is room for one more)

if i had corel or illustrator installed on this machine i would do those two but im on a laptop typing this.....

But i think you may see a pattern forming....

inkscape's icons are by default 40% larger than most other graphics applications....
Why i don't know....

David Hewitt wrote:
This is irrelevant to me as monitor size is not something that would trip me up.

Its quite relevant actually, as a bigger monitor often means a higher dpi, which means icons appear smaller.
Like i said, they dont look overly big on my 1980*1050 monitor, and paintshop pros look kinda small.

David Hewitt wrote:
Why i don't know....

gtk standard sizes are larger than some


by the way, still dont know what item 7 on that mockup is meant to be doing, the description doesnt sound like its something that SVG supports.

David,

Icons size is actually not an issue in the current development versions of Inkscape. What platform are you on? Perhaps you'd be interested in testing to see if the sizes work better for you and you can give feedback. For an example comparing the Normal & Small icons (there are three option in preferences, Normal, Medium, and Small)...
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_LEuaPiRDJHg/SFoYILdkPxI/AAAAAAAAAE0/prChqWrg4Ts/s1600-h/size_compare2.png

Note that I don't believe it currently affects icons in dialogs yet.

Cheers,
ScislaC

ScislaC wrote:David,
Icons size is actually not an issue in the current development versions of Inkscape..............(there are three option in preferences, Normal, Medium, and Small)...
Note that I don't believe it currently affects icons in dialogs yet.

And so you are right.....(thanks for clearing that up for me... it seems the development team has its finger on the pulse...)
the change does not take effect until you re-start but it works well enough......

Simarilius wrote:

David Hewitt wrote:This is irrelevant to me as monitor size is not something that would trip me up.

Its quite relevant actually, as a bigger monitor often means a higher dpi, which means icons appear smaller.
Like i said, they dont look overly big on my 1980*1050 monitor, and paintshop pros look kinda small.

David Hewitt wrote:Why i don't know....

gtk standard sizes are larger than some
by the way, still dont know what item 7 on that mockup is meant to be doing, the description doesnt sound like its something that SVG supports.

I guess your right...im on a 17 inch......
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2293&start=0
have a read through that.....
then see if you can work thought MicroUgly's link tutorial ETC.....

It should explain what i want to achieve with this button.
I.E making invisible objects carriers for filter effects ...such as blur ETC.....

heathenx wrote:No offense, David, but from what I gather your additions seem like they would aid CorelDraw users moving over to Inkscape more than they would help new or seasoned Inkscape users. Is that what you are after in your proposal?

(No matter, im not usually offended unless offense is intended....)
That was not a conscious aim when i was drafting that proposal but it may well be the result...
I did cut my teeth on corel...does it show?

I don't see this as a drawback actually i would say it strengthens the case for implementing this if it serves such a large demographic....

As for seasoning... mastering the current "work flow"...... (the way you have to work to achieve various things obviously flows from the UI and what steps are currently required of one to achieve various tasks....) means just that the user becomes adept at the current methods...

And anyone who is willing to persist with learning an application untill they are adept at all its nuances have probably not stopped to consider alternative methods various things could be done ECt... most of these people are probably just glad they dont have to pay for it......
And when someone has invested 10's or in some cases 100's of hours mastering something... are they going to be objective as to ways to improve and change them?

I can tell you most of these people are highly resistant...
This is why changes are carefully made as to not change current methods too much but rather just to augment them.

And what i have proposed does not sabotage current methods just offers alternatives...which would make inkscape allot more accessible to me an if in the process also corel users wholesale then all the better.

prkos wrote:Inkscape icons are kept in a svg file, and they are vector format. All toolbars draw icons from that file and resize it according to your toolbar size preferences (in dev builds).

Lately the discussion was about replacing the current icon set with icons that follow Tango guidelines http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Icon ... Guidelines

The discussions are held at the inkscape dev mailing list, here is a forum history of that list viewtopic.php?f=28&t=2448

Anyway with all the talk of people wanting new icons why not simply add a new setting in the preferences to specify which file/icon set to use.... that way people who want the another icon set could use an alternative.....others would use the current one....simple....