toolbar UI mockups: fill/stroke, font style

[Drakeson]

I added two mockups to the wiki.

http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Image:Mockup-Fill-Stroke-Toolbar.png

and

http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Image:Mockup-Font-Style-Toolbar.png

I put them here in this page:
http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/UI_MockupScreenshots

-gilaras

[dcberg (david-sipsolutions)]

Originator: NO

Frankly, I disagree with the suggestions. I agree, that it might be
usefull to have faster access to these things and the dialogues are getting
on my nerves as well, however, think the solution should be more like the
scribus dialog box, where all is in one window. and this should be dockable
on the right side of the window and by default hide and show like the
gnome-panel. This makes sense because screens are getting wider so it's
more logical to use vertical space than horizontal.

[Drakeson (drakeson)]

Originator: YES

Can you please attach a screenshot of the toolbox you mentioned. I don't
have scribus at the moment.

Also what I ultimately prefer is a *single* bar that changes its role and
widgets according to demand or based on context. For example say pressing
F9,F10,F11,F12 change the bar from fill/stroke-bar to text-bar to other
bars. Although wide-screens/dual-screens are good, a set of single
well-taylored bars can be equally handy.

[Drakeson (drakeson)]

Originator: YES

The vertical bars are also ok. The minor disadvantage is that the
minimum-width of such a vertical bar is larger than the minimum-height of a
horizontal bar.

The main point is that several tiny widgets should be incorporated into a
well-designed bar to aid in doing a common task. For example the
dialog-based fill/stroke should be turned into a bar (either horizontal as
shown in the mockup, or vertical). I frequently use the fill/stroke dialog,
at which point I have to do window-manager operations
(move-window-to-the-leftmost of the screen, ...) which is intrusive. Since
the dialog has many widgets it is not easy to fit it into a bar, so I tried
to figure which parts should be visible and which parts should appear on
demand (mouse-click, ...)

My point in the font-style bar is mainly the usage of generic font styles
rather than individual font names. (Generic name "Sans" as opposed to
"Dejavu Sans", or "Black" as opposed to "Textur")
The categories are not necessarily automatic, so one can customize the
generic names and the fonts under them for his/her own use. One category
can also be the recent fonts. Generally hunting good fonts from a large
list of fonts right before usage is not very convenient. A font selection
interface to categorize fonts and just selecting from small categories make
a better experience.

[dcberg (david-sipsolutions)]

Originator: NO

As you say, it's not easy to fit all the stuff into a bar and that's why I
think you shouldn't.
I think a sidepane (like corel but better) would to the job of collecting
the dialogs, and making them a lot easier to access while not being as
confusing as your proposal (I find it rather unorganised in a way).

I've uploaded two images that demonstrate the scribus properties box

http://home.tu-clausthal.de/~dcb/linux/inkscape/sidepane1.png
http://home.tu-clausthal.de/~dcb/linux/inkscape/sidepane2.png

As for the font-style bar, I really don't understand this point. Basically
you want just categories, right? But do fonts tell you what category they
are in? If not, how do you know? I don't think people will go sorting their
fonts for inkscape. Other than that I'd make it a two selection step
anyways. You first chose a filter (combobox) for the category and then you
have a font ComboBoxEntry

 __________ _ __________________ _
|all |V| |Arial |V|
 ---------- - ------------------ -
|black |
|sans-serif|
|serif |
 ----------

[dcberg (david-sipsolutions)]

Originator: NO

I just stubled across this, reading the gnome-usibiltiy list
the left bar is even closer to what I'm thinking of, but on the right side
and with different content

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/attachment.cgi?id=70980&action=view

[Daveidtucker (daveidtucker)]

Originator: NO

I know this conversation is long dead but I fully agree with categorizing
the fonts.

its true. not all users may want to categorize their fonts, so possibly
there could
be an option to turn this off,

I for one would like my fonts categorized and find this idea brilliant and
would be
put to good use by designers who revolve around fonts all the time.

it would sure make my life easier.