It is probably best to make your design recommendations at the link below.
Most contributors to Inkscape are volunteers who "develop" and re-design based on their energies and time. I am sure user feedback is desired but cannot be "demanded". And realize that there probably are hundreds of such requests but very few contributors who actually "do" the work of making them a reality. So, the ones involved have their own constraints. I am not discouraging anyone from putting forth requests, but know the reality of the situation. The ratio of "I have an idea" group to the actual group of contributors (doers who make Inkscape "new and improved") is probably at least 100 to 1. That is why Inkscape welcomes more contributors. Link below:
First time I watched such a presentation from start to finish (epic moment when Martin aka @doctormo grabs his muffin 🤣), because it was super informative, entertaining and I would have probably missed some built in and well hidden/stored features.
On the other hand 1.2 is feature complete and to address any issues you might have; this forum is the wrong place to discuss.
There could be many changes, to match with blender's gui a bit more.
Easily zoomable tabs and buttons, a rearrangeable workspace with an option of multiple viewports etc.
I'm not up to date with the current/proposed features but the floating dialogs were always a mess on windows since at least 0.48.
That is for example, when you have the fill and stroke tab floating and you open a new document, the freshly opened instance will have its fill and stroke tab floating on top of your work,
except if you click on it, it will switch to the previously opened instance.
You'd need to close all floating tabs on instance 1 so that you can access your tabs on instance 2 which is very annoying.
The filter menu could use some love because the built-in filters are a bit dated and random.
With no uniform preview can only choose blindly based on the names.
Filter editor has many other issues, like not even displaying the full description of a filter primitive but using scrollbars for like a 3 row visibility?
In blender there are different modes you can switch in between and customize, like compositing mode or modelling.
With that in mind, inkscape could have different modes too, like
text/layouting mode,
freehand drawing mode,
construction drawing mode,
gcode mode for laser cutting or embroidery
type design mode,
animation mode,
live browser preview with an xml editor,
help/tutorial mode -poining to the exact parts to the gui-
...
incorporating more parts from scribus, sk2, fontforge and enve etc.
In my opinion the gui is cluttered and doesn't help focused work/challenges newbies with alot of stuff to learn at once.
Can be intimidating if you don't know 70% of those options you'll likely never use once.
I do have some particular wish for Inkscape UI - mostly regarding keyboard shortcuts:
1 Operations regarding alignment and node handling buttons (i.e. merge nodes) require excessive use of mouse because you cannot assign shortcuts to those buttons available when the node tool is used.
2 I'm a Linux user and I also live in a location where I use localized keyboard (i.e. the comma symbol are the decimal separator) and I also always opt for English user interface when possible. I also happens to use snap package to install Inkscape if possible. However - the issue is that the GUI of Inkscape does not the respect the keyboard localization, so that Inkscape only accept the dot character as decimal separator - which is located elsewhere on the keyboard from the numpad keys. This is is perceived as a very stupid and cumbersome bug. I don't know if this is an Inkscape issue or something else.
About a year ago I made a post for a workaround (link), but in recent Fedora 35 Workstation, this method no longer work - Inkscape still won't turn nice about keyboard and decimal operator. Doing a complete switch to the local language will probably get Inkscape accept comma as decimal character, but the other changes are perceived negative and therefore this is not a solution (if this is hard to understand, try imaging that suddenly every day reading something on the screen - all you can see is a very bad translation that often is hard to understand the meaning of the text, extremely annoying all the time - so therefore no not a solution )
3. Some improvements on keyboard shortcuts - new idea probably
I noticed that in recent versions of Inkscape, there is now possible to put keyboard shortcuts for alignment operations. That is good, but instead of using a lot of single key combinations for all the alignment operations, I'd suggest it being possible to add keyboard shortcuts in a similar fashion as done in ms office. Ok, I know this sounds weird, especially from a Linus user, but please hear me out on this (I don't want to adopt the MS ribbon menus).
This must be a feature that can be toggled on/off in the preferences because not everybody will enjoy.
Example and how I think of in from user perspective: Say I want to align two or more objects. First I hit Ctrl+Shift+A, it bring up the "Align and Distribute" dialog (ADd in short hereafter). However - it also bring up some small boxes, maybe semi transparent - over each button on ADd that works like a guide, aka what key to hit next in order to activate a specific action in ADd. Have a look on how the keyboard shortcuts works in ms exel/word and you understand where I'm going with this.
Example #2 - Node tool. Whenever the user hit "N" button to activate node tool, this functions could also activates (the small boxes hovering over the relevant buttons on the toolbar for each selected tool). Say you want to remove a section between two nodes. Select the path, then hit "N" to activate node tool. Then similar small boxes with letters appears over each relevant button for the node tool. Let say letter "D" represent removing segment between two nodes. What the user then will have to do in order to remove a segment in a path : press "N" for node tool, Select the object and select two nodes, then hit "N" again (to bring up the character boxes over each relevant button) and then press "D" (if that is the assigned character for that specific function).
Why do I think this is better than simply assigning one and one shortcut for each action/function?
Ok - let say I have a way of working that me use a particular action very often, say this is removing segments between two nodes (very common when drawing electric diagrams), it can be very useful to adding a keyboard shortcut.
But if I want to have many keyboard shortcuts for several node tool actions, this gives some issues:
To remember each keyboard shortcut when needed.
It will occupy those shortcuts so they cannot be used for anything else.
yep, i agree that Inkscape's current user interface is so much cluttered. and when a new user first encounters with inkscape, they face with a lot of unnecessary tools/tabs which makes it look very confusing specially for a new user.
and i already thought of different layouts of inkscape, so definitely gonna include that in the concept.
Do you plan to make a research/know any tool on that matter on the gui usage?
Like a logger app that records the areas used on screen by the cursor, the distances and times of the movements while holding the mouse key/wheel etc.?
Best would be seeing a heatmap based on a camera monitoring the user.
Just wondering by proper inputs an ai could develop a more effective gui with a feedback loop.
Well for now i am just making the ui. It is because as an UI designer i never really liked inkscape interface, so i decided to make a interface which i would like to use and also by getting other users feedback.
i did not have any plan for that, but if i get enough feedback from users/developers, i would surely try to do it, but it would take long, because i am the only one working on this.
and don't misunderstood me, i am not a developer, i just want to contribute by making a good and well working gui concept which may inkscape developers may choose to implement one day.
cause i am someone who cares a lot about how something looks/works. i have switched from adobe software this year, just to help free/open source softwares to look better and inkscape is my first choice.
Looking at the 1.3-dev version I see that the Layers and Objects dialog has been enhanced, so that it can now show the objects in each layer and hide them individually. This is a useful feature, and dragging objects to a different layer is a nice alternative to using the Layer menu.
But is there a way that I can make it always display the hidden and locked status? Hiding this until the mouse hovers over the line seems a peculiar thing to do. The only justification that I can think of is to allow extra space for long layer names, but it does not seem to be doing this.
I often use several layers and will often glance at the Layers dialog to confirm that I am looking at what I think I should be looking at, and that I haven't accidentally put something in the wrong layer. Having to move the mouse to get this information is, I admit, a fairly minor inconvenience, but minor inconveniences can be disproportionately annoying, especially when, as it seems to be in this case, there is absolutely no compensating benefit.
@chris-barry, I agree. I'm not a fan of "Easter-egg" hidden tools and popovers. I can see the need when using small screens, but graphic design is traditionally a large and multi-screen endeavor.
(Personally, I would prefer the icons being visible on the right and having the ability to reduce the panel width, with the content being horizontally scrollable.)
It frustrates me that the unnecessarily large input dialogue boxes for object location, width and height force the height dialog off the visible 'bar strip rendering the height dialogue effectively unusable.
Reduce that (negative) negative space and welcome the function back from beyond the fold!
@symbolicM. I agree. I have been thinking of making a comment to that effect myself.
Firstly, the font is unnecessarily large, the stroke width shown near the right edge of the bar is in a smaller font, if that is considered readable then why not use it throughout?
Secondly, they use GTK spin controls which take up an excessive amount of space. (Is there a copyright or patent issue that prevents the use of the traditional north and south triangles?) In this situation I would happily forego spin buttons entirely, if I want to make incremental adjustments then I can drag the drawing itself.
But is there a way that I can make it always display the hidden and locked status? Hiding this until the mouse hovers over the line seems a peculiar thing to do. The only justification that I can think of is to allow extra space for long layer names, but it does not seem to be doing this.
"How about a tabbed interface for new images? instead of opening up an entire new instance of the program. What are the pro's and con's performance wise?"
Community Café What (UI/UX) design changes you would want in Inkscape?
Inkscape.org
feel free to share your thoughts on what design changes would make Inkscape look better and refreshed.
and you can also share ui design that you hate and don't like.
It is probably best to make your design recommendations at the link below.
Most contributors to Inkscape are volunteers who "develop" and re-design based on their energies and time. I am sure user feedback is desired but cannot be "demanded". And realize that there probably are hundreds of such requests but very few contributors who actually "do" the work of making them a reality. So, the ones involved have their own constraints. I am not discouraging anyone from putting forth requests, but know the reality of the situation. The ratio of "I have an idea" group to the actual group of contributors (doers who make Inkscape "new and improved") is probably at least 100 to 1. That is why Inkscape welcomes more contributors. Link below:
https://chat.inkscape.org/home
I'm pretty happy with the interface. The improvements already in the pipeline to allow more customization/configuration will be a bonus.
I wonder if @anaseig has seen this: https://inkscape.org/forums/inks-news/inkscape-12-ultimate-features-stream/
First time I watched such a presentation from start to finish (epic moment when Martin aka @doctormo grabs his muffin 🤣), because it was super informative, entertaining and I would have probably missed some built in and well hidden/stored features.
On the other hand 1.2 is feature complete and to address any issues you might have; this forum is the wrong place to discuss.
This forum is fine for users to discuss whatever.
For official feature requests, the tracker is appropriate.
Chat is not as useful for the community as it is not indexed: the community cannot easily find answers to questions already asked.
Nah I wonder how useful it´d be then here. Just saying.
Chat is useful for near-real-time discussion, but not so useful as a running discussion or repository.
The OP may be an independent developer or a curious user gathering opinions. Nothing "wrong" about that, nor "wrong" by using fora to do so.
Fora provide time-shifted (non-real-time) categorized, indexed discussions that inform in the near term, and in perpetuity.
Chat:Fora ~ Text:Email
@polygon
yeah man, i already saw the video. i am very excited for inkscape 1.2.
but i just wondered if there's is any ui design changes normal users want in inkscape, which would help me in my redesign concept of inkscape.
@anaseig Ok - understood.
There could be many changes, to match with blender's gui a bit more.
Easily zoomable tabs and buttons, a rearrangeable workspace with an option of multiple viewports etc.
I'm not up to date with the current/proposed features but the floating dialogs were always a mess on windows since at least 0.48.
That is for example, when you have the fill and stroke tab floating and you open a new document, the freshly opened instance will have its fill and stroke tab floating on top of your work,
except if you click on it, it will switch to the previously opened instance.
You'd need to close all floating tabs on instance 1 so that you can access your tabs on instance 2 which is very annoying.
The filter menu could use some love because the built-in filters are a bit dated and random.
With no uniform preview can only choose blindly based on the names.
Filter editor has many other issues, like not even displaying the full description of a filter primitive but using scrollbars for like a 3 row visibility?
In blender there are different modes you can switch in between and customize, like compositing mode or modelling.
With that in mind, inkscape could have different modes too, like
text/layouting mode,
freehand drawing mode,
construction drawing mode,
gcode mode for laser cutting or embroidery
type design mode,
animation mode,
live browser preview with an xml editor,
help/tutorial mode -poining to the exact parts to the gui-
...
incorporating more parts from scribus, sk2, fontforge and enve etc.
In my opinion the gui is cluttered and doesn't help focused work/challenges newbies with alot of stuff to learn at once.
Can be intimidating if you don't know 70% of those options you'll likely never use once.
I do have some particular wish for Inkscape UI - mostly regarding keyboard shortcuts:
1 Operations regarding alignment and node handling buttons (i.e. merge nodes) require excessive use of mouse because you cannot assign shortcuts to those buttons available when the node tool is used.
2 I'm a Linux user and I also live in a location where I use localized keyboard (i.e. the comma symbol are the decimal separator) and I also always opt for English user interface when possible. I also happens to use snap package to install Inkscape if possible. However - the issue is that the GUI of Inkscape does not the respect the keyboard localization, so that Inkscape only accept the dot character as decimal separator - which is located elsewhere on the keyboard from the numpad keys. This is is perceived as a very stupid and cumbersome bug. I don't know if this is an Inkscape issue or something else.
About a year ago I made a post for a workaround (link), but in recent Fedora 35 Workstation, this method no longer work - Inkscape still won't turn nice about keyboard and decimal operator. Doing a complete switch to the local language will probably get Inkscape accept comma as decimal character, but the other changes are perceived negative and therefore this is not a solution (if this is hard to understand, try imaging that suddenly every day reading something on the screen - all you can see is a very bad translation that often is hard to understand the meaning of the text, extremely annoying all the time - so therefore no not a solution )
3. Some improvements on keyboard shortcuts - new idea probably
I noticed that in recent versions of Inkscape, there is now possible to put keyboard shortcuts for alignment operations. That is good, but instead of using a lot of single key combinations for all the alignment operations, I'd suggest it being possible to add keyboard shortcuts in a similar fashion as done in ms office. Ok, I know this sounds weird, especially from a Linus user, but please hear me out on this (I don't want to adopt the MS ribbon menus).
This must be a feature that can be toggled on/off in the preferences because not everybody will enjoy.
Example and how I think of in from user perspective: Say I want to align two or more objects. First I hit Ctrl+Shift+A, it bring up the "Align and Distribute" dialog (ADd in short hereafter). However - it also bring up some small boxes, maybe semi transparent - over each button on ADd that works like a guide, aka what key to hit next in order to activate a specific action in ADd. Have a look on how the keyboard shortcuts works in ms exel/word and you understand where I'm going with this.
Example #2 - Node tool. Whenever the user hit "N" button to activate node tool, this functions could also activates (the small boxes hovering over the relevant buttons on the toolbar for each selected tool). Say you want to remove a section between two nodes. Select the path, then hit "N" to activate node tool. Then similar small boxes with letters appears over each relevant button for the node tool. Let say letter "D" represent removing segment between two nodes. What the user then will have to do in order to remove a segment in a path : press "N" for node tool, Select the object and select two nodes, then hit "N" again (to bring up the character boxes over each relevant button) and then press "D" (if that is the assigned character for that specific function).
Why do I think this is better than simply assigning one and one shortcut for each action/function?
Ok - let say I have a way of working that me use a particular action very often, say this is removing segments between two nodes (very common when drawing electric diagrams), it can be very useful to adding a keyboard shortcut.
But if I want to have many keyboard shortcuts for several node tool actions, this gives some issues:
Hope this makes sense
@Lazur
yep, i agree that Inkscape's current user interface is so much cluttered. and when a new user first encounters with inkscape, they face with a lot of unnecessary tools/tabs which makes it look very confusing specially for a new user.
and i already thought of different layouts of inkscape, so definitely gonna include that in the concept.
@Grobe
yep i would also like to see improvements in keyboard shortcuts.
@anaseig
Do you plan to make a research/know any tool on that matter on the gui usage?
Like a logger app that records the areas used on screen by the cursor, the distances and times of the movements while holding the mouse key/wheel etc.?
Best would be seeing a heatmap based on a camera monitoring the user.
Just wondering by proper inputs an ai could develop a more effective gui with a feedback loop.
@Lazur
Well for now i am just making the ui. It is because as an UI designer i never really liked inkscape interface, so i decided to make a interface which i would like to use and also by getting other users feedback.
i did not have any plan for that, but if i get enough feedback from users/developers, i would surely try to do it, but it would take long, because i am the only one working on this.
and don't misunderstood me, i am not a developer, i just want to contribute by making a good and well working gui concept which may inkscape developers may choose to implement one day.
cause i am someone who cares a lot about how something looks/works. i have switched from adobe software this year, just to help free/open source softwares to look better and inkscape is my first choice.
Looking at the 1.3-dev version I see that the Layers and Objects dialog has been enhanced, so that it can now show the objects in each layer and hide them individually. This is a useful feature, and dragging objects to a different layer is a nice alternative to using the Layer menu.
But is there a way that I can make it always display the hidden and locked status? Hiding this until the mouse hovers over the line seems a peculiar thing to do. The only justification that I can think of is to allow extra space for long layer names, but it does not seem to be doing this.
I often use several layers and will often glance at the Layers dialog to confirm that I am looking at what I think I should be looking at, and that I haven't accidentally put something in the wrong layer. Having to move the mouse to get this information is, I admit, a fairly minor inconvenience, but minor inconveniences can be disproportionately annoying, especially when, as it seems to be in this case, there is absolutely no compensating benefit.
@chris-barry, I agree. I'm not a fan of "Easter-egg" hidden tools and popovers. I can see the need when using small screens, but graphic design is traditionally a large and multi-screen endeavor.
Feature requests can be submitted via the bug tracker: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/issues
(Personally, I would prefer the icons being visible on the right and having the ability to reduce the panel width, with the content being horizontally scrollable.)
https://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/File:Contrast_slider.gif
It frustrates me that the unnecessarily large input dialogue boxes for object location, width and height force the height dialog off the visible 'bar strip rendering the height dialogue effectively unusable.
Reduce that (negative) negative space and welcome the function back from beyond the fold!
@symbolicM. I agree. I have been thinking of making a comment to that effect myself.
Firstly, the font is unnecessarily large, the stroke width shown near the right edge of the bar is in a smaller font, if that is considered readable then why not use it throughout?
Secondly, they use GTK spin controls which take up an excessive amount of space. (Is there a copyright or patent issue that prevents the use of the traditional north and south triangles?) In this situation I would happily forego spin buttons entirely, if I want to make incremental adjustments then I can drag the drawing itself.
Added this idea as a request to the devs: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/ux/-/issues/111
Ronald Marillier wrote:
"How about a tabbed interface for new images? instead of opening up an entire new instance of the program. What are the pro's and con's performance wise?"