Re: Dia's user interface

[Alan Horkan <horkana tcd ie>]

> Should check on those.  Sounds like they got some stuff right.

at the end of the day there are always going to be some choices that are
totally irreconsilable (vim Versus emacs) that may neccesitate completely
seperate keybinding schemes but that is a more long term thing that
hopefully can be handled on a higher level.

> > I also think that Ctrl+key should be used as much as possible, rather
> > than single key shortcuts.  Reasons: Consistancy, harder to accidentaly
> > do something wrong, and how do you handle conflicts with Text Input.
>
> Single key shortcuts should only be for things that don't actually change
> anything in the diagram, i.e. selecting different tools, colors etc.  Gimp
> already has that.

> As for the text input conflicts, that has been bugging me for a while.
> Especially that Ctrl-D deletes the whole string, rather than (like Emacs)

Ctrl+K is the recommended keybinding to delete a whole line (assuming i
remember correctly from the HIG).
(I expected that the Del key would delete, but it is already taken by GTK
for clearing&customizing the keybindings)

As I said in my previous email I recommend a thorough and holistic
approach to Keybindings.

> >> I believe we can give placement hints that the decent window managers
> >> may ignore, but which may make it easier for SDI people to have a decent
> >> layout.  Point to work on.

I guess i am just really stuck in my ways and really just want an SDI
interface, but i there are probably a few things that can be done to make
Dia friendlier to people who prefer SDI without bothering those who like
MDI.

> I should actually be writing my prelim paper right now:)  I just wanted to
> stir up the nest a bit and get to hear what would make Dia easier to use.

> > I should have probably filed most of these in Gnomes Bugzilla but some of
> > these things require more detail and it is hard to know if a project is
> > receptive to criticism (and even harder to be constructive when you
> > criticise).

> Indeed.  I find it useful to occasionally invite criticism to hear what
> input people can give.
>
> Boy, this is getting long.  In a couple days, I will go over the discussion
> and write up a to-do list.

seeing as you mention how this thread was getting long

although it takes a bit of effort and i realise you might not have time to
do it i think it is really great when people post a clearly labelled email
summary of a long thread.

Abiword does this as part of its weekly news, other projects (i cannot
recall) simply do it on the mailing list.  It is a great feature but the
problem is you need some one who has been paying attention to the list,
and can spare the time to write a good summary that capture the important
issues that have been discussed.

And seeing as i keep mentioning the Human Interface Guidelines.
usability.gnome.org redirects to here:
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/

> Lars Clausen (http://shasta.cs.uiuc.edu/~lrclause)


Sincerely
Alan Horkan
http://matrix.netsoc.tcd.ie/~horkana/