Toolbar icons crammed

[Alexander]

Forgive me if it's not really a bug per se, but it's nonetheless an annoyance and makes Inkscape - a technically amazing application - a bit unpleasant to work with.

The icons in the left toolbar ("Toolbox") are MUCH too crammed, there is hardly any vertical spacing / margin at all (at least on Windows 7) between them.

Please make them at least 15 or 20 pixels apart. There's enough vertical space, and it will be much easier to scan and find the right tool.

This also applies to other areas where several icons next to each other are used. Also, the on/off state is very hard to discern at first glance, for example, for the snapping toggles.

Cheers from a UI/UX guy, and thank you very very much for Inkscape!

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

Thanks for taking the time to create a report!

Could you please give details on your Inkscape version and attach a screen capture of the Inkscape window?
I don't feel the icons are particularly crammed on Windows XP, 7 and Xubuntu 16.04 (Inkscape 0.91 and development versions), but maybe I got used to it ;)

[Alexander (ae-4)]

Thanks for your reply. Find in the attached PNG a comparison between the toolbars of my former "go-to" graphics design package (Xara Designer) and Inkscape.

Here's a detailed analysis:

- the difference is only 14 vs 15 icons in the same amount of space, but the icons in Xara's toolbar are clearly easier to scan
- they also make smarter use of color - there's a pre-defined color scheme that only uses two colors (red and blue), while colors in Inkscape's icons are more or less random
- the "Bezieresque tools" icons in particular are very close together, making them hard to find (hard = in a fraction of a second when you need them :-))
- the currently active tool is much easier to spot (bright yellow background) in Xara

I appreciate the enormous effort in making such an application available for free, however, it's these little details that have nothing to do with programming per-se that are also very important. Redesigning the icons, highlighting of active buttons and -- forgive me -- the ugly cyan-pink background of the toolbar(s) alone will make Inkscape a far superior product.

Thanks for considering! :-)