More interface rantings

On Fri, Oct 20, 2006 at 10:11:25PM +0200, ggcatking.net wrote:
> You should probably give yourself more that a few crops
to get used to the  
> new layout before shouting too loud, you may actually
like some of the new  
> features once you've found them.

Yes, it *does* have lots of new features, and I'm getting
sort of used
to it, but the amount of mouse-clicking required is
annoying.

One suggestion: When a tool starts trying to be all things
to all
people, it becomes difficult to use for everyone. Here's my
idea,
FWIW, on the tool options:

The 1st time an option menu is selected for a tool, a window
pops up
with every option displayed. They are grouped into groups,
and each
group has a checkbox beside it. Display all the time, or
not? Eg,
IIRC, in the case of the crop tool there would be Crop/Scale
as one
group, "Operate on single layer" and whatever else
as another, the
rectangle section as another, etc.

Once the user has figured out which areas he/she would
normally be
interested in seeing, there is a "Save
Preferences" button at the
bottom. (Also, there could be a final checkbox like
"Always display
option menu when using this tool").

When the preferences are saved, the next time the option
pops up, it
only shows those which were checked. At the bottom of the
menu, there
is a down arrow showing that more options are available, and
left-clicking this brings up the rest that were not
checked. *Right-clicking* the arrow brings up the original
full-menu
with check boxes so that one can change the preferences
again.

This would make it a lot easier for the user to customise a
tool to
fit his/her usual work-flow with a minimum of mousing around
in a
menu. And the full arsenal of other options would be just
one click
away. As it is, the user is stuck with the order which the
developer
thinks is important, and in my case, where I normally always
want to
see the rectangle features, I have to go over to the option,
click the
rectangle pointer, then scroll down to get what I want.
Whereas I
couldn't usually care less about the crop/scale option that
is first
on the list. Maybe not a big deal, but just annoying enough
to make me
gnash my teeth.

> not a good choice go bug Mandrivel about that. The fact
that they are  
> already distributing something called 2007 clearly
shows their numerical  
> "marketing" strategy.

Completely OT: I remember the days when US carmakers brought
out their
next-year's designs in the fall - eg, the 1964 models were
introduced
in fall of 1963. So maybe this is Mandrivel's strategem. My
grandfather was a Ford dealer, and always took great pains
to conceal
the newly-arrived models from the public until the Grand
Unveiling. To
the point that he would drive a model from his garage to the
public
display the night before with bedsheets over it, driving
down the back
alleys in the wee hours of the morning.....

Scott Swanson
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