Re: [Gimp-developer] Suggestions for 2.6: hopefully not very difficult

2007-11-06 Thread peter sikking
Sven Neumann wrote:

> Michael Grosberg wrote:
>> My second suggestion - I think it was discussed before - is to  
>> switch the
>> functionality of the "add layer" button in the layers menu, at  
>> least as
>> an option:
>> click will create a new empty layer, shift-click will open the new  
>> layer
>> dialog.
>
> I am concerned that we are hiding important functionality here and  
> that
> most users will never figure out how to get the dialog in case they
> should need it. But since even the UI team seems to suggest that we do
> this change, we should probably do it all over the user interface  
> then.
> There are a few more places that use "Shift suppresses dialog".

yep, _even_ we think this is necessary from an interaction
point of view. ;^}

but watch out broad-brushing this over all dialogs that use
"Shift suppresses dialog" at the moment. for every one of these
the _right_ choice needs to be made, depending on our essential
user scenarios and our product vision.

> Again, this should be rather simple and if Peter gives his OK, then we
> just need someone to preparse some patches.

I say we put this on the 2.6 roadmap, the UI team can go through the
list of all of these and publish a spec with rationale of which
should be switched over, which can then be reviewed.

 --ps

 founder + principal interaction architect
 man + machine interface works

 http://mmiworks.net/blog : on interaction architecture



___
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developer@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer


Re: [Gimp-developer] Suggestions for 2.6: hopefully not very difficult

2007-11-05 Thread Sven Neumann
Hi,

On Mon, 2007-11-05 at 18:45 +0530, Laxminarayan Kamath wrote:

> 
>   Cant this be implemented like the playlist buttons in XMMS/Winamp ? I
> mean the tiny triangle which users intuitively take as "There are more
> options!".
> 

We are talking about showing a dialog or not showing a dialog. I don't
think that you can hide a dialog in an expander. I will assume that you
simply missed the context.


Sven


___
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developer@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer


Re: [Gimp-developer] Suggestions for 2.6: hopefully not very difficult

2007-11-05 Thread Laxminarayan Kamath
On Nov 5, 2007 1:04 AM, Sven Neumann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am concerned that we are hiding important functionality here and that
> most users will never figure out how to get the dialog in case they
> should need it. But since even the UI team seems to suggest that we do
> this change, we should probably do it all over the user interface then.
> There are a few more places that use "Shift suppresses dialog".

(Sorry Sven, I did not realise I replied only to you before)


  Cant this be implemented like the playlist buttons in XMMS/Winamp ? I
mean the tiny triangle which users intuitively take as "There are more
options!".




-- 
Laxminarayan Kamath Ammembal
(+91) 9342287956
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.geocities.com/kamathln
___
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developer@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer


Re: [Gimp-developer] Suggestions for 2.6: hopefully not very difficult

2007-11-05 Thread Sven Neumann
Hi,

On Sun, 2007-11-04 at 17:39 -0500, Kevin Cozens wrote:

> It sounds simple enough. Any hints as to how it should look? Would the Tools 
> dialog be added to the bottom of the Toolbox preference tab as a scrollable 
> area or should it be at the top?

It could be in a scrolled window or, if that doesn't work, it could be
put into an extra dialog. But perhaps we should try to avoid extra
dialogs if possible.

It would probably also make sense to move the Unit Editor to the
Preferences dialog. Perhaps it is even about time for a more complete
overhaul of the Preferences dialog.

Feel free to open bug-reports for these tasks.


Sven


___
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developer@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer


Re: [Gimp-developer] Suggestions for 2.6: hopefully not very difficult

2007-11-04 Thread Kevin Cozens
Sven Neumann  gimp.org> writes:
> On Sun, 2007-11-04 at 13:16 +, Michael Grosberg wrote:
>> The first is to take, if possible, the "tools" dialog, and incorporate it 
>> into the "toolbox" tab in the preferences. Then remove the tools dialog as 
>> a separate dialog.
> That's reasonable and it has been suggested before. Just needs someone
> to write the patch for it. It's simple enough that the core developers
> shouldn't have to deal with it. And that is probably why no one has done
> it yet.

It sounds simple enough. Any hints as to how it should look? Would the Tools 
dialog be added to the bottom of the Toolbox preference tab as a scrollable 
area or should it be at the top?

Does this need to be added to bugzilla so we have a place to submit patches? I 
did a search for open bugs with "Tools" in the summary and didn't see an entry 
that covered this suggested change.

-- 
Cheers!

Kevin.

http://www.ve3syb.ca/   |"What are we going to do today, Borg?"
Owner of Elecraft K2 #2172  |"Same thing we always do, Pinkutus:
 |  Try to assimilate the world!"
#include  |  -Pinkutus & the Borg
___
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developer@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer


Re: [Gimp-developer] Suggestions for 2.6: hopefully not very difficult

2007-11-04 Thread Michael Grosberg
Sven Neumann  gimp.org> writes:

> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Sun, 2007-11-04 at 13:16 +, Michael Grosberg wrote:
> 
> > The first is to take, if possible, the "tools" dialog, and incorporate it 
> > into the "toolbox" tab in the preferences. Then remove the tools dialog as 
> > a separate dialog.
> 
> That's reasonable and it has been suggested before. Just needs someone
> to write the patch for it. It's simple enough that the core developers
> shouldn't have to deal with it. And that is probably why no one has done
> it yet.


Thanks for the kind replies. I should have figured it would have been
suggested before. Are you planning to create some "todo" list for new
developers so they know this has been suggested?

I guess you're right about the transient dock option: 
I almost always open a single image when working with Gimp.
It's a pity... somehow it fit my own use perfectly and I didn't notice
anything wrong until I just now started to play with minimizing and 
restoring multiple windows. But perhaps it's still better than the
current situation... I'm not sure anymore.





___
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developer@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer


Re: [Gimp-developer] Suggestions for 2.6: hopefully not very difficult

2007-11-04 Thread Sven Neumann
Hi,

On Sun, 2007-11-04 at 13:16 +, Michael Grosberg wrote:

> The first is to take, if possible, the "tools" dialog, and incorporate it 
> into the "toolbox" tab in the preferences. Then remove the tools dialog as 
> a separate dialog.

That's reasonable and it has been suggested before. Just needs someone
to write the patch for it. It's simple enough that the core developers
shouldn't have to deal with it. And that is probably why no one has done
it yet.

> My second suggestion - I think it was discussed before - is to switch the
> functionality of the "add layer" button in the layers menu, at least as 
> an option:
> click will create a new empty layer, shift-click will open the new layer 
> dialog.

I am concerned that we are hiding important functionality here and that
most users will never figure out how to get the dialog in case they
should need it. But since even the UI team seems to suggest that we do
this change, we should probably do it all over the user interface then.
There are a few more places that use "Shift suppresses dialog".

Again, this should be rather simple and if Peter gives his OK, then we
just need someone to preparse some patches.


Sven


___
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developer@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer


Re: [Gimp-developer] Suggestions for 2.6: hopefully not very difficult

2007-11-04 Thread Sven Neumann
Hi,

On Sun, 2007-11-04 at 13:16 +, Michael Grosberg wrote:

> My third suggestion - and this is based on personal experience - is to 
> return the "transient dialog" option, not just as an option but as a 
> default if possible.

This option still exists, see the gimprc man-page.

I would like to bring it back for 2.6, perhaps even as the default. But
my experience is that it didn't work well enough to be even considered
as an option. It works to some degree if one is working on a single
image. But as soon as more than one image window is opened, or if
there's no image window at all, the whole things breaks terribly.

It would probably help a lot if we made sure that there's always an
image window opened. As soon as that has happened, we can unifiy the
toolbox and image menu and we can reintroduce transient docks.


Sven


___
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developer@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer


[Gimp-developer] Suggestions for 2.6: hopefully not very difficult

2007-11-04 Thread Michael Grosberg
I just have a couple of small suggestions, whose aim is to streamline the 
UI a little bit.

The first is to take, if possible, the "tools" dialog, and incorporate it 
into the "toolbox" tab in the preferences. Then remove the tools dialog as 
a separate dialog.
my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that The tools dialog is 
only used to determine the order and visibility of icons in the toolbox.
It *can* be used to select tools to use, but in ths it duplicates the 
function of the toolbox itself. So, its only feature is actually a setting,
and will almost never be used once it is set up to the user's liking.
So: there's no need to have it as a dialog along with the other more 
used dialogs.
The preferences dialog is a more logical place for such a feature.
As for implementation, I guess a "configure toolbox" button, similar to 
the "configure keyboard shortcuts", is a good solution.

My second suggestion - I think it was discussed before - is to switch the
functionality of the "add layer" button in the layers menu, at least as 
an option:
click will create a new empty layer, shift-click will open the new layer 
dialog.
The reason is that 99% of the time an empty layer is what's needed anyway.
There is no reason to force the user to press additional keys 995 of the 
time just for the once or twice a month something else is needed.

My third suggestion - and this is based on personal experience - is to 
return the "transient dialog" option, not just as an option but as a 
default if possible.
I've been using Gimp 2.4 rather extensively both on Windows and Linux
(Ubuntu+Compiz) for some time now, and have not run into any major 
problems while using the transient docks. 
While it's far from perfect, it is still so much better than doing
without them that the benefits far outweigh any possible problems IMHO.

Thank you for reading this, please consider my suggestions.

Michael


___
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developer@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer