[Ipe-discuss] Interface changes in Ipe 7

Tim Hutt tdhutt at gmail.com
Tue Nov 3 16:06:16 CET 2009


2009/11/3 Freek <freek_ipe at vanwal.nl>:
> Although I think Ipe 7 is in general a real improvement over Ipe 6, I have
> some minor problems with the new interface.
>
> First, the new grid is quite prominent, I liked the old one better. Could you
> maybe make an option to switch between the two, supposing you like the new one
> better?
>
> Second, the interaction model changed a bit such that it is more like other
> programs, which is a good thing I think. The problem I have though is that
> moving objects works a bit clumsy now. In Ipe 6 you could just use the middle
> mouse button to move stuff, even when in selection mode and also select stuff
> with the right mouse button, even in other modes. Although it took a bit of
> getting used to, it is very handy. I don't know what the best solution would
> be, perhaps a modifier key might work (e.g. ctrl+left mouse = move in select
> mode).
>
> Now that I'm on it anyway: I've always been missing a recently used file list
> in Ipe, any reason for that?

I agree with the above. In fact I was just about to send this message:

Hi,

I've played around with IPE 7 a bit and I think these would be awesome features:

1. The ability to add new colours, angles, grid sizes, etc to a global
style sheet in the UI. Symbolic styles are clearly awesome, but I
doubt anyone really uses them since it involves editing XML by hand.
2. Hover highlighting for the arrowhead / fill style buttons. They
look a bit mysterious at first and it isn't clear that they are
actually buttons.
3. A dock window that lists all the pages in the document and lets you
rearrange/duplicate/etc them. It could be a tree widget with the views
as children of the pages.
4. Order the text sizes in the drop-down in order of size. Who can
remember whether 'Huge' is bigger than 'huge', or 'tiny' is smaller
than 'footnote'?
5. Change fbox to filled box in the UI. This is pretty minor.
6. Option to turn off antialiasing for the grid.
7. I preferred the old mouse button actions (ctrl-right click &
right-click swapped). It would especially be good if Ctrl-right drag
is move rather than resize.
8. Add the menu you get on right-clicking a toolbar to the main window
menu somewhere. I guess normally it would go in 'View' but that
doesn't seem right in this case. Perhaps under 'Zoom'?
9. Ctrl-enter to confirm in multi-line text entry dialogs (email-style).
10. When you try to delete a non-empty page, show a "Are you sure you
wish to continue?" dialog rather than "You cannot do this!". I always
have to cut the pages instead.
11. Perhaps give Ipelets the ability to add menu and toolbar
shortcuts. That way you could have an alignment toolbar, and move the
image import options back to the file menu (where they are usually
found).
12. Add all the right-click properties to the main properties menu,
and the properties dock window.
13. Add 10 grey levels to the default stylesheet.
14. Draw the page borders in blue when panning.
(15. Recent file list!)

Anyway, I hope this doesn't sound like complaining too much! Ipe is
clearly still one of the best programs ever written.

Tim



More information about the Ipe-discuss mailing list