[Qgis-developer] Outline/border -> stroke?

[John Hawkinson]

I guess I should chime in here on this thread, too :), since I was invoked
originally:

> Following up on one of the points raised by John Hawkison (author of
> the famous "my first weekend with QGIS" email),

Definitely to +1 on Stroke.

As for transparency vs. opacity, as I wrote in that email:

* Why does QGIS use Transparency sliders instead of Opacity sliders?
  Isn't Opacity much more common in graphics software?

To expand a little more, both Photoshop and Illustrator use Opacity
sliders -- far left is 0% opacity / full transparency. (Although
curiously, Illustrator's is inside the Transparency window.)

Are there prominent examples of software packages (in the GIS world?)
that use Transparency instead of Opacity in sliders?

For the tols I use, Opacity wins hands-down. I gather that's not true
for everyone, but I wonder what the tools are that use Transparency
sliders (far left is 100% opacity / no transparency).

I would say, also, that Opacity is a little more intuitive, because
it basically translates to Brightness. If you ask a user which way
they turn the knob to make a line darker, they'll usually turn it in
the positive director (err, s/knob/slider/).


I would say, also, that the internal API is very different from the
UI. What's the justification for changing the API on this? Confusion
to API developers? Is that really worth it?

p.s.: I had anticipated having more time to file QGIS bugs and stuff
and that hasn't really happened. Although part of it is that it took
an awful long time to get an osgeo account and even longer to get a 
wiki account...nearly a week for the latter. Anyhow, it's still my
intention.

--jhawk