set 3 tools' style to 'own style' by default

[Brynn]

Hi Friends,
I don't know whether this would be considered a feature request or bug, but here's the problem.

The single most common newbie problem that we answer in forums, is a tool drawing an invisible object. The vast majority of the time (I'd estimate 98% of the time) the reason is because the last time they used that tool, they later changed the object they drew with that tool to transparent. That's because, by default the Rectangle, Ellipse, and Star/Polygon tools' styles are set to "last used style".

I would like to see those 3 tools' styles set to "own style" by default. That way, newbies will never experience this problem. (Possibly including Spiral tool - I can't remember how it's set by default.)

When I brought up this subject on the mailing list, a fairly large group of people decided that the way to fix this, is to change Inkscape's workflow so that you have to choose the style first, before you draw, instead of the current routine, which is draw first, style next.

They think if they can make the interface perfect, users will always choose the style first and draw next. I don't think it's possible to create such an interface, without offending people who prefer to draw first and style next.

But more than that, changing the interface won't completely solve the problem. It will still be possible for a newbie to make something transparent, and then a few minutes or a few days later, find that their tool is drawing something invisible.

Some people said they didn't want this change, because they like their tools having the last used style. But this would not effect current users. Their prefs file will insure that the styles they already have set will continue to be used.

So this change would ONLY affect people using Inkscape for the first time.

Please don't hijack this request, and make it into a discussion about the interface and style first, draw next workflow. Please make a separate report for that (if it doesn't already exist).

I have nothing against that effort, and don't see a problem if the interface is changed to encourage users to style first, draw next. I hope it is a successful effort. But I see these as 2 separate problems (which have a slight overlap).

I don't know much about how Inkscape is coded, but it seems to me this change would be a fairly simple thing to accomplish. It ONLY affects first time users, it completely prevents this very common obstacle to newbies, and it doesn't affect the effort to change the interface or workflow.

I'm frankly baffled about the strong opposition to this (on the mailing list). So that's why I'm making this request anyway. (Yes, I just answered the million and first message about this in a forum!)

Thanks for listening :-)

[Patrick Storz (ede123)]

I certainly don't like the way it works now: How often have I opened Inkscape, drawn a rectangle and realized that it had opacity or fill transparency (sometimes both!) set from the last time I used the tool and had to click through the menus to reset those to sane defaults (i.e. opaque).

On the other hand I also don't like the idea of having those tools use their "own style" by default: If I am working on an image and draw a rectangle it's likely that I want to draw some additional rectangles with the same style.

So let me propose a third solution which I think might be most appropriate for many users:
Add a third radio button that allows to set "Last used style (per session)" or "Last used style (per document)".
The way I imagine this to work is that a tool will continue to use the last used style while I work on an SVG. The next time I start Inkscape / open a new document the tool will revert to its "own style" which I can set to sane defaults that are a good starting point for all graphics.

Wether to implement it as "per session" or "per document" I'd make dependent on how difficult either of the options are to implement.

[Brynn (brynn4inks-deactivatedaccount)]

 > On the other hand I also don't like the idea of having those tools use their "own style" by default: If I am working on an image and draw a rectangle it's likely that I want to draw some additional rectangles with the same style.

When I say "by default" I don't mean that it would affect everyone the same way. Your preferences file will make sure that however your tools styles are set now, Inkscape will continue to function the same way. This will not affect existing users at all, thanks to the prefs file.

"By default" I mean in the default document for first time users. Even if you downloaded a fresh copy of Inkscape and installed it - unless you delete your old prefs file, Inkscape will still be using your old prefs.

As I said, I'm not a programmer, but I have a suspicion this would be just a handful of small edits. Maybe just 3 edits to the default doc?

(To prevent these repetivie posts in forums, I've even considered creating a custom default doc, proving it for download, and instructing new users how to install it! But wouldn't it be so much simpler to just edit the default doc for new users?)

[Patrick Storz (ede123)]

As a developer when I say "by default" I mean the state a new user without previous preferences will see, so we're talking about the same thing. As a developer I aim at setting those defaults to preferences that fit the largest possible group of users.

You're right that changing the default would be easy, but I'm pretty sure if we change it to be "own style" we will get at least the same amount of forum posts complaining about the tools *not* saving their style and questions on how to adjust the default style, therefore I don't think this will solve the problem.

The option I proposed is obviously more work, but I think it would be a suitable default for more users than either of our current options can provide.

(the tool preferences are not stored in the document but in preferences.xml)

[Patrick Storz (ede123)]

Maybe to clarify:
Setting those tools to "own style" would prevent newbies from doing errors, I agree with that.
However I'm pretty sure that "own style" is not the ideal setting for most users that spent some time with Inkscape.

In other words we have to choose between two settings that will never fit new users and more experienced users at the same time and therefore I consider this decision flawed: If there are only "bad" settings we have to try to come up with something new that works for newbies and older users alike.

[Brynn (brynn4inks-deactivatedaccount)]

 > You're right that changing the default would be easy, but I'm pretty sure if we change it to be "own style" we will get at least the same amount of forum posts complaining about the tools *not* saving their style and questions on how to adjust the default style, therefore I don't think this will solve the problem.

I don't know. I'm sure we would get some questions or complaints like that. I would be surprised if it was just as many. It certainly would be interesting to test it, to find out! I'm not necessarily thinking about a test group or panel. I'm more thinking about just changing it temporarily for one new version, just to find out.

In the mailing list discussion, there was one mention of setting up different sort of versions of Inkscape - a novice version and an experienced version. While I like that idea in general, it would be a ton of work just to solve this problem.

By the way, thank you for taking the time to explain and help me understand this better.

 > However I'm pretty sure that "own style" is not the ideal setting for most users that spent some time with Inkscape.

Maybe not, I don't know. It is for me. And I think it would be for most newbies. After a few uses, newbies start to ask questions and develop their preferences. Some will like it one way, some will like it the other way.

Here's where I'm coming from. Answering questions for newbies about how to set the tool style is fine with me. If we set the default/prefs to "own style" and even if we end up getting even more questions than we do now - that would be fine with me, because nothing has "broken".

But having the issue forced upon them, probably before they are ready, (which brings their work to a complete stop, until someone answers their message) by a tool that seems broken, should be seen as a problem. To me, it's embarassing to answer a user who thinks something is broken. Especially when the answer is 'yeah, that's how it's supposed to work'.

Answering a question about configuring something is not embarassing. Nothing is broken, and they just want to personalize a great program.

I didn't quite understand your suggestion about "last used per session" and "last used per doc". How does that prevent the invisible circle? Any kind of "last used" allows for the broken tool or invisible circle. Unless I'm missing something?

I could see it set for "own style" for lets's say the first 5 or 10 times the user opens the program, and then it automatically switches to "last used". By 5 or 10 sessions, the user would (hopefully) notice the difference and ask about it (if they haven't asked or figured out already).

I could also see some kind of pop up message, somewhere, about this. I haven't thought of a reasonable scenario, but the pop up message keeps coming back into my thoughts. Something like an alert, I guess. (Not just the status bar - it would need to be more 'in your face', I think.)

[Brynn (brynn4inks-deactivatedaccount)]

One more comment.

 > In other words we have to choose between two settings that will never fit new users and more experienced users at the same time and therefore I consider this decision flawed: If there are only "bad" settings we have to try to come up with something new that works for newbies and older users alike.

I agree that in general, the program needs to be usable by newbies and experienced users alike.

But as I've said, for this, it doesn't matter about experienced users. For existing, more experienced users, their prefs file insures that their prefs are retained. Making the default doc have "own style" will never happen for them, because their prefs file will take over.

This only affects new users. And it only affects their first few uses (or however long it takes them to realize that tools can have a style).

Or if by "experienced users" you mean people who are already experienced with graphics in general, but are new to Inkscape.....it seems to me like they would realize right away that the tool has its own style, and would start looking how to change it (if that's what they want).

[Patrick Storz (ede123)]

> I didn't quite understand your suggestion about "last used per session"

Simple:
- Fire up Inkscape -> the tools will use their "own style".
- Now draw a rectangle (or whatever) and color it pale lilac with 50% transparency
- The tool will now continue to use this new style in the opened window
- Close Inkscape
- Open Inkscape again -> the tools will have reverted to use their "own style".

This way one can have the convenience of tools remembering a style during one session, but they will revert to their default style the next time one uses Inkscape, reverting any "strange" styling that might have been set the last time Inkscape was used.

> But as I've said, for this, it doesn't matter about experienced users.
> For existing, more experienced users, their prefs file insures that
> their prefs are retained.

"Existing users" is not what I meant with "experienced users". Every newbie becomes an experienced user over time. If this process requires to change Inkscape settings along the way there's something fundamentally wrong. In the ideal case Inkscape's default settings work out of the box for newbies, but continue to work for a user getting to know to Inkscape and they will still allow for efficient work for experienced users.
Obviously everybody has different preferences (that's why we have that dialog), but we must not expect users to adjust settings depending on what stage of "learning" they have reached.

[Brynn (brynn4inks-deactivatedaccount)]

 > This way one can have the convenience of tools remembering a style during one session, but they will revert to their default style the next time one uses Inkscape, reverting any "strange" styling that might have been set the last time Inkscape was used.

Oh yes, I like that. Would it be hard to do?

 > Obviously everybody has different preferences (that's why we have that dialog), but we must not expect users to adjust settings depending on what stage of "learning" they have reached.

I'm not sure if I would agree with that. I think it's only natural that as we learn more and more about the program, we find more and more different features and preferences, and it changes how we use Inkscape.

I've been using Inkscape for about 10 years now. The first few years, I was constantly learning new features and adjusting my preferences. It's only been the last few years when I only occasionally come across something new, and change a preference. It's just a natural process of learning, I think. Inkscape is incredibly complex, and I don't think there's any way to make it so that people never have to touch their preferences.

[Patrick Storz (ede123)]

> Oh yes, I like that. Would it be hard to do?

I didn't look at the code but I suspect it should be doable without too much effort. If others agree that this might be a nice addition (or rather no one is opposed) I could have a look at it after the 0.92.2 release is out.

[Brynn (brynn4inks-deactivatedaccount)]

Thank you very much!

[Brynn (brynn4inks-deactivatedaccount)]

migrated to: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inbox/issues/1355

closed by marking Invalid

Migrated and closed by brynn.