[Qgis-developer] Digitising icons

[Tim Sutton]

Hi Marco (and anyone else interested)

I've more or less finished redoing the digitising icons:

Disabled:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timlinux/2191818025/
Enabled:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timlinux/2192605678/

I since discovered that features dont need to be selected first to
delete and move them so I will probably redo them. I also wanted to
suggest improving the logical grouping of the icons to:

Start / Stop editing
Capture points
Capture lines
Capture polys
Capture ring
Capture island
Move feature
Delete feature
Split feature
Cut
Copy
Paste
Add vertex
Move Vertex
Delete vertex


The rearrangement basically groups all feature based operations
together and all vertex based operations together. If folks approve of
that I can make the appropriate ordering changes.

Lastly, I wondered if the snapping distance in options panel can be
specified as a float rather since if you work in lat/long wgs84 as I
tend to do  the smallest snap distance I can have is 1 degree (which
is not very small).

Regards

Tim


2008/1/11, Hugentobler  Marco <marco.hugentobler at karto.baug.ethz.ch>:
> Hi Tim,
>
> >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.
>
> Ah yes, this makes sense. I thought you were talking about the attribute table, not the attribute dialog. Therefore my confusion.
>
> >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.
>
> My suggestion was to have the toggle editing button outside of the dropdown list. Therefore, in your example, there would only be one additional click with the dropdown list (choose line capture icon (2 click)). The capture line button stays selected when toggling editing on/off.
>
> But ok, in other situations where users change tools very often (e.g. alternate capture / vertex modifications), there will be more clicks. For those situations, a floating window could be nice.
>
> >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.
>
> This is a good solution for the capturing icons, but that saves only two positions. Or are there other icons that could be removed like this? And the number of editing tools may still grow in future.
>
> I had a look how other GIS handle the editing icons:
>
> Jump: floating window
> udig: dropdown list
> arc gis: dropdown list
>
> 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
> openModeller Desktop Developer
> Visit http://openModeller.sf.net for a great open source ecological
> niche modelling tool
> Home Page: http://tim.linfiniti.com
> Skype: timlinux
> Irc: timlinux on #qgis at freenode.net
>
>


-- 
Tim Sutton
QGIS Project Steering Committee Member - Release  Manager
Visit http://qgis.org for a great open source GIS
openModeller Desktop Developer
Visit http://openModeller.sf.net for a great open source ecological
niche modelling tool
Home Page: http://tim.linfiniti.com
Skype: timlinux
Irc: timlinux on #qgis at freenode.net