> I guess that makes two of us  Sorry I
didn't have the time
> to look at your mail before.
No problem. Happy new year!
On workspaces: basically, yes, it's nothing but saving
settings (and
also resources) and managing them. The concept of workspaces
is
basically a divide and conquer approach to make the
interface both
easy to use, easy to learn And easy to remember.
Workspaces are bloated because everybody wants to do
something
different: painters, website designers, photo editors and
script
kiddies need access to very different commands, all of which
end
up cluttering the top or hidden in sub-menus. Your 10% needs
aren't
the same as my 10% needs. In fact, my 10% needs for one task
(ie
editing photos) aren't the same as my 10% needs for another
(sketching). I've set up Gimp for one task, but it's always
a
headache when I want to do something else with it.
Notice how some people speak of "light-weight"
programs? More
elaborate programs can obviously do everything those
light-weight
programs can do, and for people with good enough computers
the
speed is the same. The difference is in the interface.
Interface bloat basically has several negative sides:
- it takes up space
- it makes the commands you Do need harder to find and
access
- it looks Intimidating, which is one of the single biggest
barriers to entry for a new user, but somehow gets
systematically
overlooked by many interface designers
On the other end of the spectrum, a person I know goes on
and on
about how great the program that came with his camera is,
especially
compared to "horrible to use" Photoshop.
Basically, that program
has these:
- red eye tool
- crop and transform tools
- darkness/contrast adjust button
- a few filters (actually, I'm not even sure of this one)
- That's it! Really! I actually gawked when I found out how
much
enthusiasm he shows for the program.
But it's easy to use, easy to learn, easy to remember, and
it has
80% of all the commands he'll ever want to do right at the
top.
Also, Oekaki and other online painting programs offer
nothing save
a few brushes, a few palettes, and that's it. Oekaki's
earlier
versions didn't even do anti-alias. Yet I've met a lot of
people
who love them because it's "so simple".
Through the divide and conquer approach, you can please
just
about everybody, and it is my personal belief that this
will
even become a necessity as Krita evolves: divide and
conquer
would allow More features to be accessed later on, not
less.
For templates for example: the professional press person
wants
CMYK and the lot. But when an artist loads up Krita, he
wants to
see "Watercolor hot-pressed," not "CMYK
16-bit" (though it's funny
to see their reaction). The person who just wants to touch
up his photos in the meantime, will go around cursing as he
tries
to find the red eye removal option among the mountains of
(useless
to him) brushes.
A side benefit I see of workspaces is the branching of
development work. Those who want Krita to have major photo
editing
capabilities can work on adding photo editing capabilities
and
filters, and tweak the photo editing interface, without
worrying
about the painter folks who don't want those in their
interface.
You don't have to put up with as much quarreling between
people of
divergent views, like is sometimes the case with Gimp and
such.
Is this clear enough?
(if you wanted to be even More ambitious... instead of a
Krita
program, there'd be a Krita components library and a series
of
skins. Programmers could create a brand-new skin and decide
which components they want that particular interface to
access,
basically ending as a series of smaller programs that share
the
same resources, but I'm not sure if that's doable or
desirable D: )
On icons: whoops, I explained that Really badly. XD I
didn't
mean icon size. I meant to have icons in the first place,
instead
of a bunch of text-only menus and lists. Think iPhone vs the
menu
you have to access to program your video recorder (or
graphical
interface vs text commands). It's another psychological
thing:
the visual presence makes an interface looks less
"technical"
thus less intimidating. It's silly but that's the way things
are.
I actually have a few further proposals on brush management.
The
current workspace concepts detail part of the ideas, but not
all.
Well, I'm still working on that one though.
Say... are there any working autopackages available for
Krita 2.0?
Pretty please?
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