On Sun, Feb 13, 2005 at 02:19:52AM +0100, Sven Neumann <sven@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > people in the past, too.
> >
> > I would call this hidden, yes, and I still think it's a usability problem,
> > because 1.2 clearly worked better.
>
> Marc, I shouldn't argue with you
Maybe, but I think sensible arguments are in the best interests of everybody.
> but I have to disagree with you here.
I don't think you need to, I completely agree with you on this:
> Behaviour of keybindings was dependant on the window that has the
> focus. I don't know if this has ever been a problem to you but have you
> ever seen a new GIMP user struggling with this? Keybindings are vital in
> an application like GIMP. If Ctrl-Z for Undo doesn't work in the Layers
> dialog because it's only bound to the image window, then you end up
> moving focus between windows only to make keybindings work. This is how
> GIMP 1.2 worked. For a newbie it takes a long time to
[it hasn't been a problem to me because I use focus-follows-mouse, but the
current focus behaviour is not a problem to me either, so I agree that this
change is a good one]
I do not agree with that, though:
> The GIMP 1.2 behaviour was a major pain in the ass.
Parts of it were, others weren't. Dynamic keybindings worked much better.
Also, this does not mean that all the other changes were good, certainly
the file chooser was step backwards (it has good features, but all in all
it's a step backwards, I guess just temporarily until the gtk+ filechooser
gets fixed, but still, right now, it is, and it's not clear how this will
be fixed, or wether it will be fixed at all).
> get used to this behaviour. Sorry, but 1.2 didn't clearly work better.
It did work better at least with respect to keybindings in the layers
dialog. Right now, changing keybindings needs to be done in a very awkward
way - first search what you want in another menu, with different menu
ordering and contents, and then the keybinding isn't even reflected in the
layers dialog menu.
Yes, I think 1.2 worked clearly better in the layers dialog, and what you
say doesn't really invalidate the arguments in favour of that view.
> With GIMP 2.2 you can finally concentrate on your work instead of
> tracking what window your keypress might go to and what action it will
> cause there.
I never had that problem with 1.2, but with 2.2, I have the problem of
having to go to different places to change keybindings, and not having
reminders where I need them.
To users like me, this is an absolute step backwards. I don't think it's
right to penalize the workflow of some users to improve it for others, just
because their style is differently, unless you absolutely must choose between
options that cross each other out.
For example, you can switch between dynamic keybindigs and mnemonic use
via preferences, but the 2.x dynamic keybindings are not as useful as
the 1.2 DKB were, and I do not think that penalizing people who prefer
that way (remember, it once was a killer feature of the gimp, just as
shell-like tab completion in the file dialog was) is reasonable.
> > I don't understand you. I described various problems. You claim they
> > are simply not there. Why?
>
> You may have not realized, but I didn't ignore your problems at all.
Well... so far... you... did... mostly... but that's ok if you forget them
or I was unclear, as long as I have the chance of explaining it, which is
difficult if you get insulted for trying... but... well... your choice.
> There's a new thread I opened to discuss file-chooser performance and I
I thought the file-chooser performance was gtk+ related and off-topic
here? At least that was my original impression :)
The real problems is unintituive behaviour, for example having to press a
"hidden" key combination to get a text entry, or the fact that the
file-chooser doesn't display the results of the (lengthy) file scan. If I
have to wait for it, it should at least display the results, or do the file
scan only when I want it displayed.
That *seem* to be gimp-specific problems, at least nobody claimed
something different. If these are gtk+-dependent, too, then I'd be
glad to know about it, but other apps, such as gedit, which use the
filechooser have different behaviour, so I guess it *is* customizable and
gimp-specific.
> realized that we should have more pre-defined shortcuts in the Layers
> dialog. So I added shortcuts for New Layer and Duplicate Layer actions
> last night.
Cool! That is something that I would have liked to have, too, but it's not
as important to _me_, as I can define my own shortcuts. However, defining
them has become awkward in 2.2, and this is still an open issue, I think.
Having more predefined bindings is nice, but not a solution.
Also, please see that my problem was not that you ignored problems per-se,
but that instead of arguing logically (even socially) over problems
you start insulting people, which usually results in the thread ending
prematurely, which IMHO really lokks like ignoring, worse, like "we don't
*want* to hear about that".
This is not the first time some of these issues have been reported, and
IMHO it shouldn't take a flamewar to make people realize it.
--
The choice of a
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----==-- _ generation Marc Lehmann
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