UI inconsistency on gradient editing

[Sevenissimo]

Inkscape UI is inconsistent and abiguous on gradient editing.

"Fill and Stroke" window is considered the main Object Style editor,
but editing a gradient-filled object, first it displays poor options about gradient
then become ambiguous when a "Gradient Step" (called stop) is selected:
Object seems to be "Flat color"-filled and "Opacity" setting changes automagically its meaning!

(otherwise if "Fill" would implicitly referring to selected Gradient Step (obviously flat-colored),
Gradient/Tiled options are totally out of place).

See dettails (and mockup) on attachment.

[Sevenissimo (seven.issimo)]

Proposed mockup let also easy access Gradients Import/Export and Management features

(as described on https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/171825 bug).

[Alexandre Prokoudine (alexandre-prokoudine)]

The simple answer is "Just use on-canvas gradient editing" :)

http://en.flossmanuals.net/bin/view/Inkscape/GradientTool

[Sevenissimo (seven.issimo)]

The focus is not on-canvas gradient editing (that's very intuitive to use in conjunction with palettes),
or deprecation of gradient editor (not even mentioned here),
but ambiguity generated on/by "Fill and Stroke" window durring gradient editing:

Step to reproduce:
* Start on-canvas gradient editing
* Select a Step/Stop
* Watch "Fill and Stroke" window, considered the main "Object Style editor"
* Notice what a mess between Step color (on "Fill" tab and "Opacity" setting)
   and real Object style (on "Fill" tab -> Gradient Fill and "Stroke" Tabs)

[insaner (insaner)]

i agree, and would personally love to see the mockup implemented. the problem is a bit beyond that too, as you can see from my attachment.

after i click on the "edit gradient" button in the "fill and stroke" panel, [1] i need to go and also select a different stop than the selected one to edit the colors.. [2] but then the "flat color" button is depressed. [3] if i then go and click on the "stroke" tab and move the color sliders, the colors for the fill gradient change, not the ones for the stroke

a proposed solution would be to [A] have a separate tab in the fill and stroke panel dedicated to gradient editing (since you probably have that panel open anyways when editing a gradient) and you get sent to that tab when you edit it, and have all the top row buttons used in the gradient editing appear in that tab instead, thereby also saving on screen real estate.. or at least make it an option to choose which of the two appear (or both if need be).

i did look at the swatches panel, but i dont think it achieves that purpose. i guess a further solution would be [B] to make all gradients immediately a swatch, and have swatch editing as a tab in the fill and stroke panel (as mentioned in [A]), thereby killing all 3 birds with one stone... im not advanced in my use of inkscape, so im sure this last one has a host of other considerations and problems it would cause.. but just wanted to throw that out there in case it helps.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

<off-topic>
> i guess a further solution would be [B] to make all gradients immediately a swatch,

Swatches serve a different purpose (spot colors, swatch books [1]) and are different from regular gradients. Swatches ideally can hold flat colors, gradients, patterns etc as custom paint servers, and don't get auto-cleaned when unreferenced. I don't see how eliminating the regular gradient type(s) and treating them as swatches would solve any issues with the perceived UI inconsistencies to edit the colors of selected gradient stops.

[1] <http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Swatch_Book>
</off-topic>