[Kst] [Bug 108027] New view objects for annotating and drawing

[Nicolas Brisset]

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http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=108027         




------- Additional Comments From nicolas.brisset eurocopter com  2005-09-13 18:24 -------
I have tried out the new drawing features, and it's an amazing piece of work. I do have some usability issues which I'm going to detail, but I think this improvement is really great and will be one of the key new features in the next version ! Thanks for implementing it :-)

I have sorted the issues into 2 categories: major (really needs to be adressed IMHO) and minor (sounds like a good idea to me, but not irritating enough to drive the average user crazy).

Major issues:
*************
M1) focus handling is very unusual and leads to many mistakes (which is all the worse as Ctrl+Z is not yet implemented !). The idea of an intermediate focus state and focus-follows-mouse sounded good, but I actually find it very confusing. I have often found myself moving the plot while I intended to move an object, or deleting the wrong object ! Instead of detailing the way focus handling should work, I'd suggest looking at how oodraw or inkscape or kpresenter do it (click to get focus + rotate mode on second click). It will also avoid a lot of flickering when moving the mouse around !
M2) objects get the focus only when hovering over a filled pixel, not the whole selection area (e.g. for the text "Label" you must click on a text pixel, if you click between the letter L and b but just above "a" it is not selected). For an unfilled rectangle, you have to click exactly on the line (don't set it to 0 width or the object becomes impossible to select!).
M3) the snap to grid feature is more than annoying as it may prevent one from putting an object just where it should go. While snap-to-grid can be helpful, there should at least be an option to disable it (default to no snap ?).
M4) when back in zoom mode, opaque objects prevent from starting a zoom action (and can not even be selected/moved/edited etc)
M5) the picture tool should really allow more resizing options: I have tried inserting a logo, but the rectangle I had drawn was not the right size. The picture was distorted and getting it back to the right size/ratio is close to impossible. We could add three radiobuttons to the dialog: "fit width", "fit height" or "free form" (and resizing without Shift would set it to "free form").
M6) the context menu should be available in drawing mode. There is currently nothing attached to a RMB click, while it would often be _very_ convenient to be able to call up the same context menu as in layout mode.
M7) rotating an object should be possible (I think it was actually planned ?), see oodraw or M1 for a hint how to switch from move/resize mode to rotate/shear (or at least rotate).

Minor issues:
*************
m1) double-clicking an object in drawing mode should open the edit dialog
m2) pressing Ctrl while in drawing mode has no effect until the mouse is moved; it would be better if the effect was effective even without mouse movement as this temporary layout mode idea is cool but sort of hidden right now
m3) change layout mode icon to 4 arrow cursor (or simple arrow cursor ?)
m4) it should be possible to set opacity with a slider to any value in a 0%-100% range (useful to not hide curves completely while making annotations readable)
m5) some flickering even when plots with no objects on top are changed (zoomed etc): it seems that drawing objects are repainted a bit too often
m6) arrow keys could be used for pixel-accurate positioning of objects in layout mode