[Qgis-developer] Digitising icons

[Tim Sutton]

Hi Marco

> +1. The new icons look good and I think they are clearer.

Ok I will go ahead and do this...

>
> > - The slow point for me in digitising now is atrribute data capture.
> > In particular working with keyboard or mouse involves extra clicks to
> > move between fiellds - when you capture a lot of data these all add up
> > to a chunk of time lost. I propose as a short term fix to make the
> > field names row headings rather than cell values to eliminate needing
> > to tab through field headings when jumping from cell to cell. In the
> > longer term I would like to change the ui to dynamically generate a
> > form with suitable widgets based on the data type being entered. Ill
> > come back to that in a future release though.
>
> I don't understand what you mean with the short time fix. Do you mean to
> enable the possibility to jump from the end of a column to the beginning of
> the next with tab key?

Look at the before and after screenies Im attaching. Im suggesting as
a short term fix to use the field names and row headers so the table
effectively has one column. This should require minimal code changes
and substantially increase productivity when navigating with the
keyboard using tab. I realise you can use use down and up arrows to
move between fields, but many people instinctively use tab for this
purpose which requires 2 keypresses eaach time.


>
> Yes, a circle or maybe a square with transparent fill would be nice. I'm going
> to take a look at udig and jump to see what they use.

There is a qt demo that uses semi transparent circles to let you move
nodes on a spline. Something similar would be really nice.

>
> > - we should aim to use a single icon for capturing point line or
> > polygon with its image being changed in accordance to the context of
> > the layer type being edited.
>
> Also in my opinion, the digitising toolbar takes too much space. I'd like to
> use a dropdown list for the tools. So there would be only a button for
> start/stop editing and a dropdown list for the tools.
>

I dont think making it a drop down is a good idea. When digitising
those tools are frequently accessed and by moving them into a drop
list, we save space yes but we break Fitz' Law. Think about a typical
workflow:

 - enable layer editing (1 click)
 - choose line capture icon (1 click)
 - capture line (n clicks)
 - enter attributes (+1 click for ok)
 - save layer editing (1 click)
 - resume layer editing (1 click)

Even in that simple scenario where other digitising tools arent being
used it becomes this with a drop down icon toolbox:


 - enable layer editing (2 click)
 - choose line capture icon (2 click)
 - capture line (n clicks)
 - enter attributes (+1 click for ok)
 - save layer editing (2 click)
 - resume layer editing (2 click)

Perhaps worse than the number of clicks is the break in workflow as
you need to do the icon selection process. I think we can be more
smart about combining tools into single icons where they are mutually
exclusive and win toolbar space back that way rather.

Regards

Tim


> Regards,
> Marco
>
> --
> Dr. Marco Hugentobler
> Institute of Cartography
> ETH Zurich
> Technical Advisor QGIS Project Steering Committee
>


-- 
Tim Sutton
QGIS Project Steering Committee Member - Release  Manager
Visit http://qgis.org for a great open source GIS
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Home Page: http://tim.linfiniti.com
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