Color selector

[Cyrille Berger]

On Thursday 18 October 2007, david powell wrote:
> actualy i seem to like them at the moment , size is a problem though
> for those with low res desktops
>
> from a user point of view speed of being able to do a task is more
> important
>
> in other words having to hit 3 or 4 different buttons to get the desired
> result repeatedly is not good
>
> maybe what would be a good idea is to have a flip tool view /drawing view
>
> the tool view would let you have almost all the screen aria for colour /
> brush and style options , letting you just filp to it change something and
> filp back
Ctrl+Shift+H (hide all docker) ? But I do like to see the layerbox, or the 
color selector, or the tool options when I draw. The only things is that you 
can't have two rows of dockers, I wonder how hard it would be to beg 
Trolltech to add this to Qt4 (the doc of QMainWindow::splitDockWidget seems 
to indicate that it is possible, or the function is under documented).

> usabilaty /.
>
> haveing options on display aids the user in finding them , hide them in
> some sub menu and some users may never even find they exist
>
> it also saves the user having to search though nearly all the menus to find
> the option ( remeber a lot of people would use this occasionaly  so may
> have to relearn where they are each time )
>
> blender if you have tried it is a pita , takes you 2 months to learn all
> the commands and if you have to leave it for a while you find you spend
> another few trying to relearn it , not to mention an almost imposible to
> figure out GUI , that program would be good with a new front end
> anyway

Well. In usability there is something called the "3E's analysis"any software 
is a balance between "Ease of use", "Ease of learning" and "Ease of 
remembering" (see  [1] for more details), but basically you can't have all of 
them, you need to choose a priority that will fit your target. And as a 
matter of fact, Krita and Blender target "Ease of use", that mean the 
occasional user that need "Ease of remembering" is not our priority. That 
doesn't mean we should try to make stuff extremely hard to remember or 
difficult to learn. And as far as I have been told, the blender UI is 
extremely efficient for someone who spend a lot of time with it.

> speed/.
>
> when drawing and yes 3 to 4 hrs maybe more in one go , the fact that
> you know what option you want to change , but  say
>
> you want to change the brush shape/ size ,, and the opacity  , draw a bit ,
> change the colour , and drawing mode , then revert back , eather
> you have to use quite a lot of screen space or end up having to search
> though menus for them
I hope no one try to search for this in the menu :) As they are not appearing 
in it.

That said I found your idea interesting, but I had rather see it done throught 
allowing docker to dock on multiple row and then hide them/show them with a 
shortcut. Keeping docker gives more flexibility, especially for people with a 
dual screen setup. And an entry in the handbook with suggestion of workflow 
could gives the idea to set things that way for people (like me) who wouldn't 
have had that idea.

[1] http://www.mmiworks.net/eng/methods/index.html#3E
-- 
Cyrille Berger