This suggestion is a copy from another thread, but posted here for general review and comments.

suggestion
Fly-out menus for Toolbox icons with commonly used shapes. A visual example:



Offering this feature would make Inkscape more accessible to the new and basic user as well as the power user. Let's take the third fly-out on the right: the one that offers a variety of stars.

we've all done this
A new or casual user might try to shape a freshly created star using a mouse with the inner control node to change the default shape into something that one might commonly expect. Not realizing the Ctrl key constrains the inner node's movement, the end result is distorted. Start again? Use Ctrl Z until we're back at the beginning?

Or the user might accidentally hold down the Alt key and get a complete disaster of a star and every subsequent star until the reset button is found.*

It would not immediately dawn on the user to

1. use the Tools Control Bar above
2. add a "Spoke Ratio" of 0.383 to a five-pointed star
3. add a "Spoke Ratio" of 0.577 to a six-pointed star

to get desired results.

Suggestion: Should development begin on these fly-outs, I would suggest the flexibility for new shapes to be added by the user. This would be similar to what is available under Objects > Symbols (Shift+Ctrl+Y) in the development version of Inkscape 0.48+devel r12322.
EDIT: "And ways, to create your own dynamic blocks, that you can share exactly like the upcoming symbols"—Lazur URH

Should the fly-out menus be adopted by the Inkscape development team, we could put it to the Inkscape forum community to provide some reasonable suggestions for the fly-out choices.

EDIT2: The symbols would be objects and not simple paths. Example: a five-pointed star would be a standard star with the spoke ratio pre-set to 0.383. Likewise for all objects added from the fly-out menus. Maybe Xav could suggest a variety of talk/thought bubbles as one would find drawn in cartoons?

______________
* (Seriously: give that a try: 1. Create a random star. 2. Hold down the Alt key and move the inner node around. 3. Create a number of new stars! Because of our familiarity with the software, WE would find it "easy" to reset.)

I'm familiar with the concept, partly.
Not for the star part. Not for anything already exists.

But for a range of "dynamic blocks".
Like, in word there is such a paper shape as a simple object, as the one on that libreoffice screencap on the right popup panel.
Where there is a handle to change some dimensions of the object, resulting you can draw several different shapes with one tool.
Like the star tool's handles.

Knowing of there will be a symbol function, where you can add such simple object to your assets, it will do what you suggest.
I'm much for a collection of dynamic blocks.
And ways, to create your own dynamic blocks, that you can share exactly like the upcoming symbols.

Lazur URH wrote:I'm familiar with the concept, partly.

I could compile a large number of screenshots showing that Adobe Photoshop has them, CorelDRAW has them (strikingly similar to Inkscape), LibreOffice Draw, etc. I'm not suggesting that Inkscape should have them because other software packages do. I'm suggesting that other packages have these fly-outs because they make sense. It's also true that artists and casual users alike have come to expect this kind of interface for art programs.

Lazur URH wrote:Knowing of there will be a symbol function, where you can add such simple object to your assets, it will do what you suggest.
I'm much for a collection of dynamic blocks.
And ways, to create your own dynamic blocks, that you can share exactly like the upcoming symbols.

I believe that a flexible fly-out system would be a great advantage! If/when this feature is added—much like the upcoming symbols—the flexibility to add/edit/restore defaults would give Inkscape an excellent flexibility. Sharing fly-out tool libraries? Yes! I agree with that one.

I like the idea. I've certainly seen a few requests in the forum, for having a list of different pre-defined, pre-designed shapes from which the user can choose. And the fly out idea, of course, is an attractive bell/whistle kind of feature. But I'm just not sure it's needed yet.

Maybe if the main toolbox was getting cramped, all the shape tools could be offered from a flyout from a general shape button. For that matter, I guess all the tools could be listed on a flyout menu, and have room for the entire Snap tool bar underneath. Although, horizontal space doesn't seem as universally needed as vertical space. Why not put the whole command bar in a flyout menu from the left? I guess the control bar often requires repeated inputs, so that using a menu for it would be annoying. But the command bar is usually single needs.

If I recall, in the other topic where you 1st posted this, druban mentioned something about 0.49 having some kind of libraries. I remember asking him if they were pre-built libraries, available for download, or if the user creates the libraries themselves. But either he didn't see my question (it's an extremely long topic) or I missed his reply. Maybe here?

It doesn't matter to me exactly how a list of pre-defined, pre-designed shapes is implemented. If it's in a dropdown menu from the top, or a fly out menu from the left or right, isn't extremely important to me. To be honest, it's not extremely important to me whether there are lists of pre-defined, pre-designed shapes, or not. Personally, I think it's more fun drawing my own custom shape. But I can see where it would be really convenient for a professional graphics designer, to have those shapes ready to use.

So you can count me in the middle on this one. I have no particular objections. But probably wouldn't find much use for such a feature anyway

I think I may have badly worded my original post if I gave anyone the impression that the fly-outs were to house current shapes. That's not what I meant.

The fly-outs I'm suggesting would provide additional shapes (shapes we would currently have to shape ourselves) beyond the basic as it currently stands.



This is a mock up of the idea I suggested. I'm not suggesting the fly-outs must contain what I illustrated: they've only been added to illustrate my point. The fly-out idea would have to be adopted first before the default set of shapes be added.

In my opinion if you want to be more specific with this suggestion, draw a mockup of each new shape in action.
Personally I don't see how some of those shapes would add more to the tool palette than the existing ones.
Like the hexagon, pentagon, octagon and that triangle can be drawn with the existing star tool.
Same with the arches.
The only new things I see there is the ring, the rectangle with the hole, and the cross.

Lazur URH wrote:In my opinion if you want to be more specific with this suggestion, draw a mockup of each new shape in action.
Personally I don't see how some of those shapes would add more to the tool palette than the existing ones.
Like the hexagon, pentagon, octagon and that triangle can be drawn with the existing star tool.
Same with the arches.
The only new things I see there is the ring, the rectangle with the hole, and the cross.

Didn't I painstakingly mention the two stars in my first post? Neither star in my first post is new: they're both "stars". I even provided the specific spoke ratios to create them. I just don't believe the onus should be on the user to find these ratios through endless tinkering (like I did to make that first post) or forum research to get them. In a week even I won't remember these ratios. New shapes such as hearts, talk bubbles with adjustable bubble sizes (see LibreOffice Draw or any cartoon software for usage ideas), along with typical shapes one would find in many other software packages would be welcome.

Heck, I'd happily accept the fly-outs offered by LibreOffice Draw myself, just as they are. I was going to blatantly copy every idea over from LibreOffice Draw just for the simplicity of the mockup, but I thought I'd add a few original twists, not necessarily to say: "I insist on THESE shapes!!!" but more to provide a variation on the LibreOffice themes.

Lazur URH wrote:The only new things I see there is...

The purpose of the fly-outs is not restricted to NEW shapes with control nodes that are currently not available in Inkscape. The fly-out idea was initially presented with my description of how inconvenient it is to draw a typical star. This is an example of an OLD shape with a NEW twist: convenience for the user.

There are two different things you mention:

1.: flyout menus
Layout improvement, for the time there would be too much tools to be displayed at once, because of the integration of

2.: new tools
for drawing new shapes.

Actually there will be such option to use pre-made shapes, like stars with fixed spikes for an example.
If it's library is entered through a fly out menu, it would cover most things you depicted.

But I think it would make things less efficient, if there is a tool for creating something that is already covered by another tool.
I was thinking about you showing how the new tools would work.

My new tool suggestion would be a Thom's egg drawing tool.
This is how it would look in action:


And here is how it would be accessed from a dynamic block panel:


Only the ring, the frame and the cross of yours are alike.

Edit: you made your post clearer while I was typing.
Now I'm thinking the upcoming symbol function could cover all your needs.

Lazur URH wrote:Now I'm thinking the upcoming symbol function could cover all your needs.

If by symbol function you're referring to some feature I haven't seen in the Development version, I'd be interested in taking a look at that.
If by symbol function you're referring to the new library, well, as it stands: no. The library is not as useful as I first hoped it would be.

I tried adding a chat bubble from the library into a document. Here are my observations.

1. The bubble has text in it.
2. The text can't be edited as if it were a typical text object: I was unable to change the embedded text.
3. Ungrouping the chat bubble wasn't possible. At least, not when I tried.
4. The bubble doesn't have controls for shaping (other than what we would find on a path). The kind of controls I'd expect to find on a chat bubble would resemble these:



In this image, the top row shows 3 cartoon-style "word bubbles". The main area can be reshaped by using any of the 8 blue control handles to allow for text. The bottom row shows 1 word bubble's "pointer" (for lack of the accurate word here). It can be dragged to the speaker without changing the size or dimensions of the chat bubble. This is a fun tool that removes the need to shape each chat bubble separately.

Where I can see Inkscape doing a much better job would be in the upper area of the bubble. Much like Thom's Egg, a control node could be added on top to allow for how rounded the corners would be. Some people want an ellipse for a chat bubble. Others a square rectangle. Personally, I prefer a rectangle with rounded corners.

Does the proposed Library support objects? Can Thom's Egg be added to the Library and keep its functions?

P.S. Love Thom's Egg!

The more I work through the Object > Symbols libraries, the more discouraged I get.

The Symbol Signs, Map Symbols and Logic Symbols are fine. Once they're dragged to the tableau, they only need reshaping. They can be colored and so forth. They're fine.

The Word Balloons and Flow Chart Shapes, on the other hand, are not editable. I can't break them apart, change text or colour them. I'm not sure if this is intentional or an oversight.

Wow, that would be an interesting tool to have.

Also on a developer's view, how to add those pointers.
The handle point can be defined well, but where does it start? Should it look like it is coming out of the center?
I think that would be hard to handle as a dynamic block, as the logic of that symbol implies it is drawn from two separate objects, that are merged together.
But who knows?

I've posted a question to the launchpad about the library shapes. Before posting it as a "bug", I wanted to know how the library works first.

Oh gosh, I never realized ~suv is a developer! Hi ~suv!! No WONDER you know so much about Inkscape!! Love ya!

Lazur URH wrote:Wow, that would be an interesting tool to have.

I know Xav does cartoons using Inkscape. I'd be willing to ask him very nicely what shapes a cartoonist would find helpful.

Lazur URH wrote:The handle point can be definde well, but where does it start? Should it look like it is coming out of the center?

You can grab that pointer and drag it anywhere. It moves as if it is anchored to the centre of the talk bubble itself. But as you can see, no lines appear within the bubble.

Lazur URH wrote:Also on a developer's view, how to add those pointers. I think that would be hard to handle as a dynamic block, as the logic of that symbol implies it is drawn from two separate objects, that are merged together. But who knows?

Yes. That's a very good point. We currently have "Path > Object to Path". But can we have it the other way around: "Path > Path to Object..." where we can add control handles and dynamic blocks and add these to sharable libraries and ... and... we will be able to RULE THE WORLD!!

Here is my take on the text bubble idea:





There should be some styling on that spike, so named it as text bubble 1.
The logic of this block is totally different from the built-in solutions.
Like, the bounding box doesn't cover every part of the block, and,
how the rendering is a composite result and possibly not a boolean.
Wondering what a developer would think about this.

Is that a screen shot of Thom's Egg at work? If so, I wouldn't mind a link to where I can get that extension.

It looks like the kind of tool I could use to construct some items.

Thanks!

BobSongs wrote:I think I may have badly worded my original post if I gave anyone the impression that the fly-outs were to house current shapes. That's not what I meant

No, not at all. I understood what you meant. The example I gave of having all the shape tools in 1 flyout menu, is just the only way I could conceive of using a flyout menu with Inkscape, currently. I will probably understand your suggestion better, once I've seen the stable 0.49 (whenever that will be).

@ BobSongs

till LazurURH gets back, you could check on these two:
Thom`s eggs
Thom's egg calligraphy / LazurURH`s topic

brynn wrote:No, not at all. I understood what you meant. The example I gave of having all the shape tools in 1 flyout menu, is just the only way I could conceive of using a flyout menu with Inkscape, currently. I will probably understand your suggestion better, once I've seen the stable 0.49 (whenever that will be).

I understand fully. The only shapes we currently have are 4: . A fly-out menu just for them would be pointless and inefficient.

Okay, it wasn't a great idea.

BobSongs wrote:I know Xav does cartoons using Inkscape. I'd be willing to ask him very nicely what shapes a cartoonist would find helpful.

I may draw a few cartoons, but I'm not sure I'd consider myself "a cartoonist" - putting a label on it implies a level of professionalism that I'm nowhere near!

I started writing a whole lot of stuff about what I would want from a speech bubble tool, then realised that it's actually a very complex combination of parameters, and probably far off topic for this thread. Lazur's ideas above are good, but just the beginning. A "proper" speech bubble tool would probably be a significant undertaking in its own right (GSOC 2014, anyone?). Apart from anything else, I would ideally want the size to be set by the text content plus a margin control, rather than by having to manipulate sizing handles, which immediately takes it outside the realms of a simple template and into the realms of the text tool.


I do think that some standard basic shapes - including speech bubbles - would be a good addition to Inkscape. But they would have to be trivially transformable into paths via Path > Convert to Path so that they could be used as a simple starting point to create a shape that will then be modified by the cartoonist. These basic shapes would cover a lot of use cases:

1) Oval speech bubbles
2) Rectangular/rounded rectangle speech bubbles
3) "Cloud" bubbles
4) "Spiky" bubbles
5) "Bloated" and "Puckered" bubbles (think regular clouds, and explosions)


Actually, and off topic for this thread, a Pucker/Bloat tool would be really useful for some speech bubbles that are currently very time consuming to create by hand (see http://veerle-v2.duoh.com/blog/comments ... _and_more/ for an example of Illustrator's Pucker/Bloat tool, albeit used for other artistic purposes).


A selection of these bubbles wouldn't be as useful (to me, at least) as a full speech bubble tool, but would probably help novice users no end.

About the Thom's eggs, I just couldn't come up with a 100% correct name.

There is a term "three point arch", meaning that the arch is constructed of three circle arches.
There are lot of three point arches that look totally different, which makes it a less accurate explanation.
Another name is the depressed arch, wich covers the overall shape, not the structure of the geometry.

Basket-handle arch is the most specific take on the names.
There is a reference on that some five point arches are called basket arches as well, so that's not a perfect explanation.

It is called Der Korbbogen in deutsch, as for basket-arch or der Korbhenkelbogen, as basket-handle arch.
Anse the panier -basket arch- or arc surbaissé -depressed arch- is it in french.
It appears as arco policentrico or arco ribassato in italian -arch from various origos and depressed arch.


There are nice examples for it in architecture.
It was widely used in baroque.

Xav wrote:...A "proper" speech bubble tool would probably be a significant undertaking in its own right (GSOC 2014, anyone?). Apart from anything else, I would ideally want the size to be set by the text content plus a margin control, rather than by having to manipulate sizing handles, which immediately takes it outside the realms of a simple template and into the realms of the text tool.
...
These basic shapes would cover a lot of use cases:

1) Oval speech bubbles
2) Rectangular/rounded rectangle speech bubbles
3) "Cloud" bubbles
4) "Spiky" bubbles
5) "Bloated" and "Puckered" bubbles (think regular clouds, and explosions)

I see my previous idea too complicated to be a dynamic block of that compositing problem.
But maybe it could be separated, so a simple spike, as a dynamic block, that you can merge with the right bubble.

For drawing bubbles based on text dimensions, there could be some extensions, it doesn't seem too complicated.

Xav wrote:Actually, and off topic for this thread, a Pucker/Bloat tool would be really useful for some speech bubbles that are currently very time consuming to create by hand (see http://veerle-v2.duoh.com/blog/comments ... _and_more/ for an example of Illustrator's Pucker/Bloat tool, albeit used for other artistic purposes).

I don't like the result drawn with that tool, the small curves are drawn from two point beziers, and not from more circular ones.
And with a hole, it looks worse in my opinion, as those won't be parallel lines.
But there are fast ways to draw similar in inkscape.

Actually, Lazur, I was wondering what you installed in Inkscape to get this:



The tool says: Dynamic Blocks (Shift+Ctrl+B) but that's not by default in Inkscape.

I would like to test this add-on.

Thanks!

Lazur, I think you might have focused too much on some specifics in my previous post, and missed what I was really trying to say: in my opinion a fully featured, genuinely useful speech bubble tool would be sufficiently complex that it would really need to be a top-level tool in Inkscape. The UI you presented earlier is a good start, but doesn't go nearly far enough. As we're not likely to get a really good tool any time soon, I would suggest keeping it really simple instead, with just a few pre-defined shapes that can then be modified using the node tool. It will be good enough for a lot of users, just to add a simple caption to an image, but not all that useful for more serious comic work.

From what BobSongs said earlier in the thread, the upcoming symbol library would do the job, provided the result can be ungrouped to get to the text (actually I would rather see the shapes with no text content, as it's not exactly difficult to create the text on top afterwards).

Lazur URH wrote:

Xav wrote:I would ideally want the size to be set by the text content plus a margin control, rather than by having to manipulate sizing handles

For drawing bubbles based on text dimensions, there could be some extensions, it doesn't seem too complicated.

I don't think an extension would do the job, as it needs to remain "live" while the comic is created. Every speech bubble in one of my Monsters, Inked comics gets reworked a dozen times or more as the comic comes together. The text is manually broken, then re-broken, then re-broken again as I try to make it fit a suitably oval shape. Hyphens are added, moved and deleted. The font size changes, words are emboldened, other words are replaced entirely. With every change the bubble is adjusted to suit, then perhaps moved around to avoid obscuring details in the background or hitting other bubbles. Finally the tails are tweaked to suit the new size and position of the bubble. And that doesn't even begin to consider any "continuation" bubbles that might be attached.

A "proper" speech bubble tool would keep everything live. As I change the text, the bubble would resize to suit, and the tail would automatically adjust. As I move the bubble around, the end of the tail would stay put by the character's mouth. The tails from continuation bubbles would remain attached, and move around as necessary.

As you can imagine, this would be a major piece of work. A half-hearted attempt, such as an extension to draw a bubble around some existing text, wouldn't really bring much benefit over the symbol library approach.

Lazur URH wrote:

Xav wrote:Actually, and off topic for this thread, a Pucker/Bloat tool would be really useful for some speech bubbles that are currently very time consuming to create by hand (see http://veerle-v2.duoh.com/blog/comments ... _and_more/ for an example of Illustrator's Pucker/Bloat tool, albeit used for other artistic purposes).

I don't like the result drawn with that tool, the small curves are drawn from two point beziers, and not from more circular ones.
And with a hole, it looks worse in my opinion, as those won't be parallel lines.
But there are fast ways to draw similar in inkscape.

The link was purely so that people who don't know what the Pucker/Bloat tool does could get a basic idea, not for artistic critique . I couldn't find a good link to using it for speech bubbles, so I've scanned an excerpt from "Comic Book Lettering the Comicraft Way" (non-affiliate Amazon link):



Achieving the same result by hand in Inkscape takes a lot of node/handle editing. For a single balloon perhaps the odd minute or two spent on it is inconsequential, but when you've got a whole load of them to do it adds up (and gets frustrating) very quickly.

BobSongs wrote:...
I would like to test this add-on.
...

Me too! That was just a mock up. Nothing funcional.

Xav wrote:...
A "proper" speech bubble tool would keep everything live.
...

Though one!
Didn't think on how to create dynamic blocks, but maybe if there will be a node based editor tab for creating parametric elements,
it would allow creating text size linked speech bubbles.

Xav wrote:...

Guessing it would be good if it was a live path effect.

Lazur URH wrote:Guessing it would be good if it was a live path effect.

The description in the scan makes it sound like an equivalent function could be implemented as an Inkscape extension. The only parameter governs the amount of puckering or bloating, and the results are fixed once the OK button is pressed. I don't know what the algorithm behind the tool is, but I would guess that it's naively rotating handles, possibly after normalising them to a fixed ratio of the segment length.

An LPE version would be better, of course. Firstly it would be live. But I could also envisage a more sophisticated algorithm, allowing the option of setting a focal point such that the handles' rotation and scaling would be affected by the node's position relative to that point. Perhaps I'm over-thinking it though.