koffice/karbon/usablity-review.txt

Since I think the following link is closely related, I am including it here :

http://dan.ostrowski.cc/suggestions.html

Rob Buis <buis@kde.org>
17-12-2003


On 27-sept 2003 I did a usabiltiy review of karbon.
This is during the feature and message freeze of KOffice (pending the 1.3 
release) so many of these issues will probably have to wait. Hence this
document in CVS.

Issues are written down, and if possible to do without a ui file, a proposal
is made.
Naturally this file does not cover each part; items will be added by me when
feedback seems positive and time permits.

Please remove this file (or individual points from this file) when all stuff
has been done/fiexed (which I hope is fast :)

Thomas Zander <zander@kde.org>



Starting up I notice that the toolbars are not persistent; the 'Tools' bar
was left floating by me last time, now its docked at the top again.
Since that makes the whole top-line of bars quite large I do think that
the tools bar has to go to the left by default.  And the toolbars should
be persistent naturally.

Toolbar 'Tools'
===============
The toolbar is used to select the main tools by clicking on buttons (more
radio buttons actually; since you keep it selected when you click it).
To select extra options you click on the icon again, which brings up an
options window.
bug: the options window of the 'select tool' (top left) has a title 'insert star'.

First problem I see is that it is hard to see which tool is currently selected,
while this might be a problem in the style (KDE3.2 default) there is another
problem that makes this problem really a problem instead of just an annoyance.
It is not obvious that clicking on an already clicked item brings up a dialog,
it is annoying to get that dialog if you just clicked the item to make sure
you clicked it.
Another bug makes it even worse; the '14' icon is clickable but does not notify
the software that the formerly selected tool is not selected anymore. Selecting
the formerly selected tool again brings up the options dialog again.

I suggest to move the options dialog to a dockable toolbar which is brought to
front, or simply displayed when dubble clicked. Notice that dubble clicking is
different from the click twice action that happens now.

Suggestion2:
Add keyboard shortcuts to the buttons and show them in the tooltips. The keys
should be single key (no modifier) shortcuts.
Suggestion3:
Add a new tool called a 'line' which creates a single non-closed line (and no
options to make it curved) and put that in the place of the annoying '14'.
Suggestion4:
Make 'ESC' select the 'Select tool'



Tool: Select tool
=================
With the select tool you can select elements like individual starts or groups.
The way it currently works is that it takes the click and selects the first
object that it falls into based on the algoritm of the complete square that
contains the top left to the bottom right coordinate.
selection can only be done via a square and all objects that have a presence
in that square are selected.
The problems I found are;

When you have multiple objects you tend to select the wrong one.
It is impossible to add or subtract objects from the current selection.
It is impossible to select 3 objects from a four-in-a-row where the
unselects is not one of the outside objects.
It is impossible to select an object that is completely inside another.

A perfect solution would:
* make the 'hit area' based more on the outside of the shape.
A line should not be selected when clicked more then pixels next to it.
Text should be selected when clicked in the white area of a 'D'

* Select extra objects when CTRL is used to select them.
* Select extra objects that occupy the same spot (behind each other)
when pressing CTRL and ALT
* Select an object that is 1 layer deeper (behind the currently selected one)
and unselect the current one by clicking CTRL and SHIFT.

* An extra selection tool would be able to draw freehand on screen and all
stuff inside that freehand selection would be selected.

* When noting is selected and I point and drag an object (using the modifiers
from above) directly drag that object.

* Using 'shift' while dragging for a position for the text snaps the angle to
an angle mod(45) i.e. 0,45,90,...

Notice that the selection options proposed are taken from KWord.

Tool: Select Nodes Tool
=======================
The goal is to select and modify individual nodes.
With the current approuch you have to select an individual node by dragging a
selection over it for the object you want to modify to show all of its nodes.
Following that you can find the node you want to edit and select that one,
again dragging a selection box over that node.

With the current approuch it is not possible to;
quickly find out which nodes exist on an object; on objects that don't have
many nodes you quickly miss the nodes.  On top of that alternative
applications allow the user to select a line with a single click. That user
will take a number of tries to find a node to select and will probably not
learn this approuch for quite some time.
Selecting a node before you can edit it is also counter intuitive; I found
myself clicking and dragging a node some times, only to see another node moving
that I had selected before.

I suggest:
* Allow the user to select an object (to show all of its nodes) by clicking on
a line; of the object.
* If one (or more) objects were selected when the select nodes tool is invoked
make those objects selected directly and draw all their nodes.  Possibly using
an algoritm to not draw 'hidden' nodes. Hidden means ones that lie underneath
other objects.
* When a click is made missing all objects; don't unselect the object (thus
removing node previews)

* When a node itself is clicked on a selected object, select that one.
* When a node itself is clicked and dragged on a selected object, drag that one.
* Use the node selection algoritm that are the same as the object selection
algorithm described above.
* Allow a node to gain a knot when ctrl is used to drag it
* Using 'shift' while dragging for a position for the text snaps the angle to
an angle mod(45) i.e. 0,45,90,...



Tool: Rotate
============

I don't get this one; there is a center 'dot' painted that stuff moves around,
but that dot also moves when I rotate.  That should not be possible...
I also did not find a way to set the center point..


Tool: Shear Tool
===============
Is this suppost to actually do something?


Tool: Text tool
===============
After I found out I could click twice, I understood it a bit more; but this one
is still largely a mystory to me..

I suggest:
* Single click makes a horizontal text entry; drawing a horizontal line in
light blue (for example).
* Using 'shift' while dragging for a position for the text snaps the angle to
an angle mod(45) i.e. 0,45,90,...
* Popup a dialog, or allow in line editing as soon as a position is determined
by the click or drag
* Put a default text in the dialog when the application starts up so the first
drag shows that text.


Tool: Pattern tool
==================
As soon as I find out what it does..


Tool: Zoom
==============
Please use 'alt' to zoom out again...


Colors (in tools toolbar)
========================
Currently you have to double click to get the color dialog.  Make that use the
KDE double click policy.
The 'Stroke' tab is inacurately named since it also contains info on gradients.
I suggest renaming it to 'Outline'

Overview dock;
==============
it should be possible to make that tool larger, and it should really start larger by
default.

Layers:
Put tooltips on
- the checkbox by a layer (what is it for anyway)
- The lock column (or each lock if you can't do it per column)
- The visible column.
Don't blank the preview of the object when it is set to non visible; make it
grayed out.

This looks really unfinished right now so I won't go into this and trample
someones unfinished work.



General content area
====================
There are keyboard navigation features added that are not quite the same as
what artists from other packages are expecting.
- Add 'del' to delete an object
- allow 'SHIFT' arrow to move the item 1/4th of te distance.
- Allow shift dragging to drag an item across a 45 degrees line. So only
horizontally, vertically and the 45 and 135 degrees axis.
- Allow shift scaling to keep aspect ratio.
- Allow ctrl scaling to scale around the center instead of against the
other edge