Dear developers:
The following issues and ideas came up when I recently worked on a
lots
of data and I imagine many users may have the same or similar issues.
The QGIS software is used by many experts in various fields by peoploe
working mostly on important infrastructural projects and fields of
public interest like hydrology, (sustainable) agriculture, urban
planning and many more. Besides reflecting in a growing number of
software development experts the success of QGIS can also show in
winning a large group of GIS users. Satisfied users include the
ability
to easily and quickly handle the software which means the usability of
QGIS is essential. As far as I know QGIS has been evolving for a
couple
of years. Using QGIS mainly as a user and for scripts I personally was
confronted with a couple of minor but yet annoying obstacles which led
to the ideas further below that crossed my mind. Realizing the size of
the collection led to now wanting to suggest and initiate a usability
offensive for the upcoming versions. Perhaps it could also be a
motivational goal to be completed before the next major release 4.0 or
4.1?
Returning to the notion of the offensive: I think especially QGIS core
functions should be very well thought of and offer a high degree in
usablilty. Many of my ideas focus especially but not exclusively on an
easier and quicker use of frequently used functions like feature
attribute editing, filling in data and the attribute table dialog but
there are also other topics for improval like easier and quicker ways
to
edit geometries/features when entering specific attribute values.
Where
some functionalities are already in place so that I as a user was just
not aware of them it might be worth thinking about how that
availability
could better be communicated to the user. (This is not meant as a
defense why I haven't consulted related tutorials but to seek and
collect intuitive usability improvements)
The initiative could be started with the below bunch of topics/tickets
to discuss the ideas and when agreed label them with the key words
"Usability offensive" and "GUI/UX". Apart from contributing the below
ideas my suggestion would be to ask users in the users mailing list
(or
even in an official call on the web page and in the welcome message)
for
their most important issues they repeatingly stumble upon when
performing their daily work. They could then also label their
ideas/requests with the before mentioned key words.
Also I was wondering whether the development team has ever thought of
collecting statistics about user behaviour in order to detect most
frequently used actions and functions in order to be able to improve
these these.
I am looking forward to your thoughts on my initiative.
Kind regards, Tobias
--------
My idea is to create a ticket as a feature request with the label
"Usability offensive" and "GUI/UX" for every hyphen. Unfortunately I
don't have the permission to set labels.
- Usability improvement: Always show number of currently marked
objects
in status bar at the bottom. Background: When the map is moved or
other
actions are performed the user doesn't know how many features are
currently already selected (https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41618)
- Usability improvement: Additional button in advanced digitizing
toolbar: Move part of a polygon. The functionality of moving the part
of
a polygon is missing. Currently only whole Polygons can be moved using
the "Move" tool, parts can be added or deleted using their respecive
tool or single lines/points can be moved using the "vertex tool" yet
parts cannot be moved. (https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41619)
- Usability improvement: Improve vertex tool: make adding vertex nodes
to an existing geometry easier. Currently the user needs to look for
the
middle of a segment, navigate there, hit the x and then move the line.
It would be beneficial to have an alternative and quicker way of
inserting vertices. Background: Especially when the user has a lot of
vertices to move it's tiring and costs a lot of time to do it this way
Suggestion: Yet there is a double-click option that adds vertices I
can
think of a quicker and more efficient way to add new vertices as the
mouse needs to be very close to a line. Three ideas:
* What about entering a quick edit mode as soon as a line is selected
by a right click so that then a double click (or even a one-click if
that doesn't break a consistency rule) wherever on the canvas (except
for being close to an existing point or a line that is to move via
one-click) would be favourable. Or in other words: As soon as the
(previously selected) line is unambigously known a double click (or
even
one click - depending on a consistency discussion) can easily create a
new vertex point.
* What about an additional button for adding new vertices by click
(creates new vertex), hold (drag), move and let go at the new vertex
position (mouse button release)? That would mean only one click for
adding a vertex in contrast to 3 clicks for the current solution
(double
click for activation, drag and one click for fixing the new vertex
position).
* Suggestion: in combination with a key like e.g. the ctrl key or as a
sub-item of the vertex tool to create an to insert a new vertex as
soon
as the user gets close to the line.
Also: I couldn't find a way to delete vertices. If that doesn't exist
that would also be an important thing to have.
(https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41620)
- Usability improvement: Multipolygon vertex table: make
affiliation/membership of points and of polygon contained in a
Multipolygon transparent to the user. Based on the table it is barely
not determinable what points belong to what polygon and how many
polygons there are. Currently the multipolygon has only a "flattened"
representation in the user interface. The current representation does
not support a python script writer looking for understanding his data.
(https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41621)
- Usability improvement: Select features in freehand mode, polygon
mode
or radius mode: Currently the user needs to click twice when
graphically
selecting features. This doesn't seem much of a diffence yet for
dozens,
hundrets or even thousend objects it is very frustrating. Suggestion:
Start drawing the selection area when mouse button is hold/pressed and
select when mouse button is released -> Advantage: The user can select
single/individual objects by clicking only once instead of twice. If
the
current selection method should be kept the new suggestion could be
implemented as an additional option when pressing a key before
selecting
or something similar
(https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41622)
- Usability improvement: Add functionality of double clicking with any
selection tool or the "Identify Features" tool on a single geometry
for
selecting it (toggle between adding/revoking the selection)
(https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41623)
- Usability improvement: Instant/direct edit of identified results in
the "Identify Results" panel when layer is in edit mode. At least when
double clicking on a feature attribute value, even better when single
clicking on an entry in the "Identify Results" table
(https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41624)
- Usability improvement: Integrate the "organize columns" button into
"Identify Features" and "Multiple Edit" to facilitate the choosing of
fields. The chosen attributes for this layer shall be saved and used
in
all later attribute tables, identify results tables and multiple edit
tables until redefined (https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41625)
- Usability improvement: Integrate a quick switch/filter button to
either show only CHOSEN FIELDS or ALL fields. The chosen option for
this
layer shall be saved and used in all later attribute tables, identify
results tables and multiple edit tables until redefined.
(https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41626)
- Usability improvement: Show/edit only specified/filtered attribute
and
not all when identifying and editing results. Description: When
identifying and editing these results the whole list of attributes is
shown. The list may contain many attributes and when the user needs to
edit only one attribute which is situated and shown at the end of the
attribute list the user needs to scroll down and find that one
attribute
for every object. Doing this for many objects is very painful.
Suggestion: Make the fields to be displayed in "Identify Results"
panel/table adjustable, similarly to the "Organize Columns" dialog
that
is accessable in the attribute table.
(https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41627)
- Usability improvement: Offer the "multiple feature edit" in the
context menu when right clicking on graphically selected features in
map
canvas: consider "chosen"/filtered fields/attributes that had been
selected via "organize columns" dialog
(https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41628)
- Usability improvement: Quick click to graphically deselect all (e.g.
3
times click or right click)
(https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41629)
- Quickly access the attribute table by double click: e.g. when
clicking
on the layer's name. When clicking on the layer symbol, open layer
property dialog.
I know there's already an option to choose between the properties
dialog or table view. If my suggestion doesn't make this option
unnecessary we could add a third "split" option with a location
dependant functionality (which I personally would then opt as the
default) (https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41630)
- Usability improvement: Double clicking on a layer selection box
should
not trigger the opening of the layer's properties as selecting and
deselecting a layer too quickly brings shouldn't bring up a dialog.
(https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41631)
- Rename tool tip description "Modify the Attributes of all selected
features simultaneously". Suggestion to rename it to "Multiple Feature
Edit" (preferred due to being short and hopefully self-explanatory
enough, yet not sure if clear to all users) or "Modify several
attributes of selected features at once" (very long). Any other ideas
for a better wording? By the way I personally would rather opt for a
longer wording in the top area of the dialog itself rather than in a
tiny tool tip button. (https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41632)
- Usability improvement: Add functionality to the layer context menu
in
"Layers" panel: Flash all features, flash selected features
(https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41633)
-In Feature Attribute Table view: Various view related action symbols
like the Filter Form, Organize Columns, Show only specific Features
(selected, visible on map, Edited and New) as well as the Switch for
Form and Table view are scattered among the upper and lower margin
what
makes is hard for me to orientate. Any opinion about grouping all view
related properties and buttons at the top right: What features to show
(selected/all/visible on map/...), form view/table view, what columns
to
show. I'd suggest to leave only one logic fnctionality at the bottom
such as instant field filtering.
I also generally noted that there are multiple ways of filtering. On
one
side that offers many possibilities and provides freedom whereas on
the
other hand the many options may confuse users and may create an
overloaded picture. Any more positive ideas that could help clearing
up
the many filtering options picture in the attributes dialog?
(https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41634)
- Confusing: Create a new field in the field calculator dialog without
being in edit mode on the layer and even if the user cannot create a
new field
-> suggestion to remove this function from the field calculator
dialog and have only the option to create virtual fields as a
remaining
option (https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41635)
- Improve Layer Styling: Facilitate multiple labels with different
colors in addition to "no labels", "single labels", "rule-based
labeling" and "Blocking". In the first run the function should
facilitate to chose multiple attributes with different font colors and
font styling. A later option could to enable the user to determine the
label arrangement horizontally and vertically. (functionality
considered
as inferior priority) (https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41636)
- Add functionality to the layer context menu in "Layers" panel: Add a
feature related context menu to the categorized symbols/items/features
in a layer, that enables the user to "Zoom to features", "Zoom to
selection", "Flash all features", "Flash selected features"
(functionality considered as inferior priority)
(https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41637)
- Create a "Selected Features panel", meaning to provide a panel
similar
to "Identify results" with the functionality of the "Multiple feature
dialog". Important note: In needs to be easily distinguishable by its
looks from the identify results
(functionality considered as inferior priority)
(https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41638)
- User may be confused about selected objects that cannot be modified:
Maybe change selection color of objects when Layer of selected
features
is editable?
(functionality considered as inferior priority)
(https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41639)
- ability to open the raster georeferencer and read recently
georeferenced raster map from layer context menu
(https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/41640)
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