when select gradient objects Fill and Stroke window too big

[arhifane stefan]

I use
Inkscape 0.48
on Mandriva Linux release 2010.1 (Official) for i586
Kernel 2.6.33.5-desktop586-2mnb on an 8-processor i686

When i select a gradient object, the Fill and Stroke window take more than half of my display, and i can't even see the whole fill and stoke window so i can pick the color i want. It fades in the right site of my display. It's very annoying and i don't know is a bug or a special setting or the normal act of inkscape.

Thanks,
Stefan

[arhifane stefan (inotator2001)]

i forgot to say it repeats all the time.

[Brynn (brynn4inks-deactivatedaccount)]

Further discussion and screenshots here: http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=11922

[arhifane stefan (inotator2001)]

It seem the problem is because of the very long name of a some gradients. It happen because copy the copy of the copy.... of a gradient object.

Also are some other causes, you can see in the forum.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Related discussion in Bug #819422 "Smaller interface elements":

<quote>
Known causes for increased width of (docked) dialogs:

1) Translated strings in the UI
(Fill&Stroke: labels in the notebook tabs at the top, labels for the stroke style options)
IMHO it is also part of the translators job to pay attention and find compromises if the chosen translation strongly affects the width of GUI elements.

2) Dynamic lists of gradients, patterns and markers:
(Fill&Stroke: names of gradients, patterns, markers)
Any strings in any of the tabs can increase the overall width of the dialog - also the names of (auto-generated) markers (or patterns) in the pop-up lists: open the SVG file attached to (otherwise unrelated) bug #596842 in Inkscape [1] and see how the dialog width adjusts to marker names like "sid-BAAAB2A5-C9D5-4326-B0B9-C849AE56E10A_sid-BAAAB2A5-C9D5-4326-B0B9-C849AE56E10A_2".

3) Other GUI elements:
(Fill&Stroke: lists instead of previews for resources, color wheel (bug #687655))

4) (…)

With regard to 1) and 2): Possibly dialogs/widgets/labels could have a max. width set (if current GTK+ versions permit/support it) and/or inkscape could force the use of ellipsis when translated strings or generated list items exceed the max. length (with the full string as tool tip)?

With regard to 3): There have been proposals to use different widgets for items like dashes, markers and patterns (with rows&columns) to achieve more compact interface elements with improved usability (bug #171003, bug #170390, bug #171952) and various others for the lists of gradient/gradient names.

Related recent discussion about a redesign proposal for the Fill&Stroke dialog on the mailing list:
<http://old.nabble.com/Re%3A-Mockup-for-Improvement-of-Fill-and-Stroke-Dialog-to31090310.html#a31350312>

[1] <https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/596842/+attachment/1432106/+files/SequenceFlowDefault.svg>
</quote>

Other related reports:
Bug #170552 sizes of dialog windows (comment #1)
Bug #172030 Width of Undo History palette could be optimized
Bug #293358 The right panel is often too wide and not shrinkable
Bug #810103 Improper rendering while scrolling in maximized window with long layer labels

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Attaching sample file with 200 rectangles with a gradient fill - each a pasted copy of the last pasted one.

Random real-life example (not as bad as the attached one created on-purpose to demonstrate the effect, but still noticeably reducing the size of the workspace area):
<http://www.deviantart.com/download/215110106/egtk_mockup_kit_by_danrabbit-d3k2k0q.svg>

[John Smith (john-smithi)]

> Select a gradient object, the Fill and Stroke window take more than half of my display,

This should be solved now by commit for bug #950677.
Seems to work with sample file (Comment #5) as well.

Please reopen if still issues.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

@John - could the same change be applied to the ComboBoxes for the markers?

Example SVG file from bug #596842:
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/596842/+attachment/1432106/+files/SequenceFlowDefault.svg>
Screenshot:
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/819422/+attachment/2349152/+files/819422-screenshot-marker-name-nonsense-ui-1.png>

I never met a real-life example with long pattern names myself so far, but will keep looking…

[John Smith (john-smithi)]

Yes, committed r11378 - limiting the width of the markers to ~20 chars.
This is about the max before the Fill & Stroke dialog starts to expand on Ubuntu 11.04.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

@John - many thanks for updating the marker selectors to use ellipses for longer names.

- Could you add the same code for the color profile selector on the CMS page of the ColorNotebook?
- If names of linked ICC color profiles (or any name of available resources) get truncated, do you think it would be possible/feasible to display the full name as tooltip (wrapped to a fixed width of the tooltip)?

Attached screenshot done with Inkscape 0.48+devel r11376 + patch from bug #1000023 (Gtk+/Quartz 2.24.10, on OS X 10.7.4).

[John Smith (john-smithi)]

@~suv, attached is a patch for the above suggestions (#9).
Could you please confirm there are no issues on OS X ?

[su_v (suv-lp)]

@John - initial tests with Inkscape 0.48+devel r11384+973195.color.v1.patch look ok to me.

Tested builds:
- Mac OS X 10.5.8 (32bit), Gtk+/X11 2.24.8, glib 2.28.8, Apple GCC 4.2.1
- OS X 10.7.4 (64bit), Gtk+/X11 2.24.10, glib 2.32.3, Apple llvm-gcc-4.2
- OS X 10.7.4 (64bit), Gtk+/Quartz 2.24.10, glib2 2.32.3, Apple llvm-gcc-4.2
- OS X 10.7.4 (64bit), Gtk+/X11 2.24.10, glib 2.32.3, FSF GCC 4.6.3

Related questions:
1) The current patch (or the recently added function gr_ellipsize_text() ) appears to display a larger portion of the last part of the resource name - maybe the ellipses could be "moved" to display a larger portion of the first part of the resource name? ISTM that the first part of the color profile name (or other truncated resource names) is often more significant than additional identifiers at the end.

Sample original names:
Web-Coated-FOGRA28--ISO-12647-2:2004-
Coated-GRACoL-2006--ISO-12647-2:2004-

Current ellipses: ( 8 3 14 )
Web-Coat...-12647-2:2004-
Coated-G...-12647-2:2004-

Proposed ellipses:( 12 3 10)
Web-Coated-F...47-2:2004-
Coated-GRACo...47-2:2004-

or symmetric: (11 3 11)
Web-Coated-...647-2:2004-
Coated-GRAC...647-2:2004-

2) Naive question (out of curiosity): Any reason not to use a real ellipsis "…" (single character: HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS, Unicode: U+2026)?
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis#Computer_interfaces_and_programming>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis#Computer_representations>
<http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2000.pdf>

[John Smith (john-smithi)]

Committed r11388 - limit the length of color profile names:
* Moved the ellipse to the middle of the name
* Use a proper ellipse as @~suv rightly points out.