v3beta5 bugs

Re: v3beta5 bugs

KeynoteKen — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:59:12 -500

I think you can very quickly get to a “Microsoft Office” point where EVERY tool is directly clickable and editable. I don’t think anyone wants to intentionally design their app like Office though (unless it’s the Office clones).

I’m not sure if this applies, but I believe, in the System Preferences, there exists the ability to assign a keystroke to any menu command at the app level (under Keyboard & Mouse). I just tried this with “Reverse” and it worked as expected.

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Re: v3beta5 bugs

IanB — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:40:17 -500

“toolbar”

I meant the horizontal row of icons at the top of a window.

“…undocked palettes take up more screen real estate than menus.”

That’s accepted, but an unopened docked palette is tiny—it’s just a title.

Menus are harder to use than palettes. If you know exactly what you want to achieve and know what effect a particular blend will have when it’s applied to an object, menus are good enough. You just go straight to the menu item and—bingo—the job’s done. I’m not that clever; it takes me longer.

Also, any item in Intaglio’s Window menu can be added to the list of docked palettes. That’s very good, but if a user doesn’t need a particular feature, he doesn’t have to add it to the list. For example, I don’t display Document Properties and Text Ruler, but I know the features are available if required.

If you choose the wrong blend or path operation, you have to keep going back to the Object menu, then the sub-menu, etc, until you get it right. If the options were more easily accessible, trying out different combinations of blends and colours would be much easier.

With palettes, when you’re done, you just click the close button and the desktop is free again.

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Re: v3beta5 bugs

Nick — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:21:24 -500

Alternatively, put Blends in the menu bar, next to the colour palettes.

I’m guessing you meant the toolbar rather than the menu bar.

It would be nice to allow the toolbar items to “undock” as various apps have done in the past (probably going back to MacPaint). That’s mostly just a question of priorities. So far it hasn’t been a huge priority because it tends to go in the opposite direction of a main discussion on this thread. Namely, undocked palettes take up more screen real estate than menus.

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Re: v3beta5 bugs

IanB — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:40:12 -500

I’d like to see most of the features in the Object menu available via palettes.

Blends and Paths could be easier to access. In other programs (Photoshop, Chocoflop, Pixelmator, Lineform), blends (or ink modes) are in a drop-down menu that’s always visible.

Alternatively, put Blends in the menu bar, next to the colour palettes. The palettes would be easier to use if they ‘stuck’ (stayed open), or were detachable. Currently, when you choose a colour, the palette closes, so if you’ve chosen the wrong colour, you have to go back to the menu and choose another colour. If it’s still wrong, do it again…etc. LightningDraw’s colour and ink palettes are in a menu bar at the top of each window. This is similar to Intaglio, but the palettes can be detached and dragged into the working area.

Alternative 2: if Blends and Paths were put into palettes and docked, they could be detached and dragged into the work area. I hope this makes sense; it’s easier to explain this with screengrabs.

Path Operations (Unite, Intersect, Exclude and Subtract) would be easier to access if they were in a palette. The features could be accessed by pressing radio buttons, similar to the options in the Group palette.

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Re: v3beta5 bugs

IanB — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 23:25:14 -500

I made a template (Paper Size Super B/A3, oriented horizontally) and docked all the palettes together into a single column. The template almost fills the screen and as the closed palettes are only 3” high, there’s lots of room to create design elements, even with several open palettes. It’s a significant improvement over the previous arrangement, where the work area was cluttered with open palettes.

“…use the right mouse button (on the disclosure triangle) to open the inspectors.”

This doesn’t work with a single-button mouse. These shortcuts do work, however:

To open or close all pallettes: Option-click on a disclosure triangle. To open a palette and close all open palettes, Command-click on a disclosure triangle.

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Re: v3beta5 bugs

KeynoteKen — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:50:21 -500

I’ve noticed that the new OmniGraffle is taking a middle approach. Another interesting take is their toolbar that snaps to the side of the window like a drawer.

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Re: v3beta5 bugs

Nick — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:14:04 -500

FWIW, the early versions of Intaglio used a single inspector palette model closer to what iWork uses. The problem was that there are now so many inspectors it became impractical to create a toolbar or other header control to specify them all.

Personally I also think using a text name for the inspectors is more usable than the iWork icons. With lots of little icons it’s easy to lose track of what they represent. This is the kind of thing that’s always open to debate and if it becomes an important issue for a lot of people could be changed (or at least supplemented).

I’ve noticed that the new OmniGraffle is taking a middle approach. It uses multiple palettes but groups several icons into each one. You can also select multiple icons in each window (although this mostly only seems useful to me if you don’t change it much). Clearly everybody is facing the same set of problems and trying different things to find the “best” solution.

As I’ve alluded to before, one way to use the current implementation more efficiently for screen space is to use the right mouse button (on the disclosure triangle) to open the inspectors. This will open the clicked inspector and close the others in the same window. If you combine this with the inspector regrouping option you can reduce the screen space you use.

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Re: v3beta5 bugs

KeynoteKen — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 14:47:59 -500

While I think the iWork palettes may be limiting for this kind of app, having several windows open with iWork is a matter of holding option before clicking one of the inspector tabs.

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Re: v3beta5 bugs

philhendry — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 14:17:03 -500

Taking applications in iWork as a model for the user interface, would be (in my opinion), a great improvement. For example, If you were to introduce an inspector window, in which the several tabs would replace today’s multiple palettes, that would be a greatly reduce the screen clutter.

Yes, but it would also reduce functionality and useability - I sometimes need several palettes open at the same time - with a single inspector window that would no longer be possible.

> Phil

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Re: v3beta5 bugs

IntaglioUser — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 03:14:18 -500

” For the record I didn’t say that Intaglio won’t ever incorporate more CAD features. The chances are good that new CAD features will be added over time.

This thread is a good example of how thin a line Intaglio is trying to walk. Some people want better dimensioning or other CAD related tools. Some want better text handling or predefined gradients or other graphics tools. Everybody wants better user interface that packs more information on the screen without sacrificing legibility or convenience.

Intaglio has evolved considerably in the last few years based on the feedback of its users. The plan is to continue on that path so this type of discussion is always helpful. “

Nick,

I am glad to read that you plan to incorporate more CAD functionality into Intaglio.

Indeed Intaglio evolved a lot, with each new release bringing many useful new features. I think that version 3.0 left most of us a little disappointed in this regard.

Perhaps this is not the right thread to provide suggestions for new features, but there are some basic features / functionality that are almost obvious. Other are less obvious but could be a major point of attraction for new customers. For example, I have searched, and not found, drawing/CAD applications for OS X, that would import/export GDS2 files, a format that is pervasive in electronic engineering. In fact there aren’t even simple “format translation” apps that are OS X native. (such as this one http://www.linkcad.com/site/formats) This is an great market opportunity for an app developer for OS X.

By the way, I would not mind paying an upgrade fee, if that is what is needed to get more CAD functionality and improved user interface in some future release (4.0 ?). I suspect that many others agree with me on this point.

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v3beta5 bugs

cdhw — Sat, 31 May 2008 10:33:40 -500

I’ve been trying the prelease version v3beta5 of Intaglio.

There is a problem with libraries: If I have enable arrows and draw a few lines with arrows, then drag an item from the library onto the drawing the result is that all the lines in the library object have arrows attached to them. This should not happen IMO. The objects in the library are ‘finished’. If I want to embelish them with arrows I need to select the object, then apply arrows.

Sometime ago we discussed the behaviour of objects when clicked. I think I managed to persuade you that, to be consistent with normal Mac behaviour and to give the immediate feedback the HIG stipulate, the resize handles should appear on the mouse-down of a single-click (to give immediate feedback), whereas in fact they still don’t appear until mouse-up.

Some of the version 3 examples don’t look quite right (at least on my 10.3.9 G3). The text with coloured background has a white background same as all the other text, also the emboss effects seem missing. Many thanks for supporting 10.3.9 by the way. It doesn’t matter to me if some of the effects are missing but a note in the examples saying which don’t work would be reassuring.

All the best

Charles

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