/srv/irclogs.ubuntu.com/2008/11/27/#ubuntu-artwork.txt

_MMA_join #lipsofsuna02:49
robstahey thorwil, have a sec?13:00
robsta(re single-canvas approach)13:03
thorwilrobsta: yes, now13:06
robstathorwil: andreasn told me that you can still edit grouped elements in inkscape, just double-click the group13:06
thorwilrobsta: i know. but if you build a button from scratch, there is no group ...13:07
robstathorwil: yes, but you don't have to ungroup for editing, thought that was the contention we had13:08
robstathorwil: starting from the template all IDs will be set already13:08
thorwilrobsta: the problems are: A: initially there is nothing to group if you build the button from scratch. B: you cannot ungroup to easily move parts around. C: editing in groups is damn confusing13:09
robstathorwil: but is the missing initial group really a problem? when you start from scratch you don't need a group, only once you load the actual theme in the engine13:11
thorwilrobsta: i expect several iterations to happen ...13:11
robstathorwil: yes, but once you have the group iterations are easy13:12
robstathorwil: the problem is i don't know how to handle plates design-mode vs. rendering-mode13:13
thorwilrobsta: excpet for moving and copying parts around13:13
robstathorwil: librsvg can't change element attributes on the fly13:13
robstaso it can't turn off plate visibility13:13
thorwilrobsta: that's the one thing the designer has to do. hide background and plates13:14
thorwilrobsta: one could even write a script that makes sure they are hidden in the file13:14
robstathorwil: let's leave the script idea aside for now, and focus on an easy-as-possible workflow13:15
robstaone can always script, but it doesn't necessarily make things more intuitive ...13:16
thorwilrobsta: remembering to hide 2 layers is much easier than dealing with groups13:16
robstaok, i see13:17
robstayou are the designer :)13:17
robstaplates it be, then13:17
thorwilrobsta: what about the alternative i mentioned, finding the groups by their coordinates? that way the designer would only have to care about things being grouped in the end, no matter what the ID ends up to be. also no fuss with hiding layers, provided you can render the group sans bg13:17
robstathorwil: that's a possibility, but it seems messy13:18
thorwilrobsta: ok. i'm happy with plates :)13:19
robstathe ID is a uniqe identifyer, coordinates are more a "soft" lookup13:19
robsta(i.e. you can't tell whether you got the right elements rendered or not)13:20
robsta(from the code)13:20
thorwilrobsta: seen https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/KyudoGuidelines/Pieces/Buttons ?13:21
robstayes13:21
thorwilrobsta: i wasn't able to determine if GTK+ itself would allow all listed states. so now would be a good time to warn me ;)13:22
robstathorwil: what is "double"?13:23
thorwilrobsta: deafult+focus13:23
robstathorwil: oh, maybe just call it like that, then?13:23
thorwilrobsta: yeah, only it's too long :)13:23
robstadoesn't matter, as long as the plate is in place13:24
robstaor break it over two lines13:24
thorwilmy plates use the same labels13:24
robstathorwil: i like your systematic approach, guess no engine/theme out there handles all those states differently13:25
thorwilbut i bet you will like "double" better, as soon as it spares you from writing default-focused13:25
robstano, i like things explicit13:25
robstaand not trying to invent things, just call it what it is13:26
thorwilrobsta: ok, i will change the template13:26
robstagreat13:26
robstathorwil: i'd like to look over the naming scheme anyway, at some point13:27
thorwilrobsta: i think i will change - to _, so it can be default-focused_normal13:28
robstathorwil: please no13:29
thorwilluckily SVG is search-and-replace friendly :)13:29
robstathorwil: hyphens are so much nicer to read13:29
thorwilrobsta: how then? defaultfocused_normal?13:29
robsta"button-focused"13:30
robstaok, let's quickly go over the naming13:30
robstathe left-top one should be just "button"13:30
robstathen, to the right13:30
robsta"button-focused", "button-default", "button-focused-default"13:31
robsta2nd row13:31
robsta"button-prelight", "button-prelight-focused", "button-prelight-default", "button-prelight-focused-default"13:32
robsta3rd row just use "active" for "prelight"13:32
robsta4th row: "button-insensitive"13:32
robstawhat do you think?13:32
robsta(there may be other things than just buttons in the template at some point, so better start correctly)13:33
thorwilok13:33
robstamaybe a native speaker would like to weigh in regarding "prelight" vs. "prelit"13:34
thorwilrobsta: i'm using the GTK terms there13:35
robstayes, guess that's a safe bet13:35
* thorwil edits template13:36
robstathorwil: where should we host the theme?13:36
robstagnome-svn with the engine, or bazaar-playground.gnome.org?13:37
thorwili'm not quite sure if this shall become a theme solely for the engine, or an ubuntu theme, yet13:37
thorwili prefer bzr13:38
* robsta figured as much13:38
thorwiland i like launchpad :)13:38
robstathorwil: i'll put it on b-p.g.o so you can clone as you see fit13:40
thorwilok, cool13:40
thorwilrobsta: so far my actual use of bzr/LP has been just pushing stuff to have a backup and stuff available online :)13:41
robstathorwil: just that b-p.g.o doesn't let me log in for some time :/13:44
robstaisn't that box under ubuntu administration?13:52
thorwilb-p.g.o? no idea.13:54
* _MMA_ works to get some of Sebastian's Breathe work into BZR.14:15
thorwili didn't even link to the SVG template, but to the PNG and nobody notice or cared to inform me :}15:12
thorwilrobsta: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/KyudoGuidelines/Pieces/Buttons15:13
robstathorwil: very aesthetically pleasing :)15:14
thorwil:)15:15
robstaguess i only need to make it work now15:15
robsta:P15:15
thorwilgnarg. had to update the SVG once more to ajust the canvas size15:35
_MMA_Dammit. bitmaps aren't being rendered with Inkscape SVN and the Breathe script. Had go back to older Inkscape. :(15:45
robstathorwil: i have just patched librsvg, you'll need trunk15:49
kwwii_MMA_: hrm, that sounds funky...which options changed?15:51
_MMA_Don't know. I'll talk to Ted when I can. Most likely tomorrow.15:52
_MMA_And Sebastian messed up alot in his submissions so I got alot of cleanup to do. Mostly him not labeling things and messin' with the 22x22/24x24 plates.15:54
kwwiiouch15:55
kwwiited is on vacation until tomorrow, btw15:55
kwwiierm, wrong...he should be back from vacation but flying to california15:55
_MMA_Sure. I'll hit him up when I can.15:56
_MMA_hahahhahahaha The friggin' Macy's parade was Rick-Rolled! hahahahah15:58
_MMA_(though it was part of it all) :P15:58
kwwii Rick-Rolled?15:59
_MMA_kwwii: Oh come on man. :) You know. We did it at UDS-Prague.16:00
kwwiierm, maybe I am just stupid and forgetfull then :p16:05
kwwiiahhh, google is my friend16:05
_MMA_:P16:07
robstathorwil: unfortunately there are problems with the plates approach in librsvg16:20
robstathorwil: apparently librsvg can't locate the plate in your template, whereas a group works just fine16:20
thorwilrobsta: problems are there to be solved16:21
thorwil;)16:21
robstathorwil: oh what a nice way telling me to work harder ...16:22
_MMA_Are the plates noted a "path####" or "rect####"?16:23
_MMA_Look in the plates properties.16:23
robstarect16:24
_MMA_Hmm...16:24
* robsta tries to locate an arbitrary rect16:24
robstaarbitrary _visible_ rect16:25
robstathat works16:26
robstahow can i put something on the plates layer?16:27
_MMA_I wouldn't. I'd put it 1 layer above.16:28
_MMA_But if you wan't to an it appears you cant, it might be locked.16:29
robstaoh, i'm trying to find out what fails librsvg16:29
robstathe different layer, or visibility of the plate, or whatever16:29
_MMA_Ctrl+Shift+L brings up the layer dialog box.16:29
robstaok16:29
robstato i have to move it to top to draw on it?16:30
_MMA_*Anything* above that plate rectangle will (or should) get rendered. So it's pretty much WYSIWYG.16:31
robstayes16:31
robstahow can i add a plate of my own, for testing?16:31
_MMA_So you *can* draw it anywhere above a given plate. As long as you can see it.16:32
robstai'd like to find out why librsvg fails to localise the plates16:32
robstaso i'm trying to draw a plate of my own16:32
robstabut the plates layer seems locked16:33
thorwilrobsta: it is locked16:33
_MMA_You have to draw a rectangle, and make sure the id is "rect####".16:33
thorwilrobsta: ctrl+shift+L for layer panel16:33
thorwilthe lock icon/button should be self-explanatory16:33
_MMA_My particular script looks in the "Label" field also.16:34
robstaoooh, i can only draw on it when its visible16:34
* robsta rather cackhanded with that kind of things16:34
robstathorwil: so it seems librsvg can only locate plates when their layer is visible16:35
* _MMA_ wonders how Inkscape does it then.16:35
robsta_MMA_: it's something completely different16:36
robsta_MMA_: it seems when you read dimensions of an element using librsvg the suff is rendered internally, and the the bounding box is measured from that16:37
thorwilrobsta: oh. in that case, you can turn the alpha of the rects all the way down, but keep the layer visible16:37
robstathorwil: good one! how?16:37
robstathorwil: works!16:38
thorwilrobsta: there are several ways. the layer itself has alpha. each object and finally the color/fill16:38
robstait was right there in the layers panel, shame on me16:39
robstathorwil: are all buttons drawn to have a 5px border?16:45
thorwilrobsta: don't know what you mean16:46
robstathorwil: the button images are sliced, how wide are the borders?16:46
thorwilrobsta: the corner radius is 5 px16:47
robstaok16:48
thorwilrobsta: the sides are 9 px wide16:49
robstaoh16:49
thorwilrobsta: from top 8 px16:49
thorwil6 px from bottom16:50
robstathorwil: we need to work on these terms: http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-background/#the-border-image16:50
thorwilrobsta: percentages only?16:55
robstathorwil: no, lengths or percentages16:56
thorwilrobsta: then the numbers i gave you do it :)16:56
robstaso top-right-bottom-left is 8 9 9 616:57
thorwilyes16:57
robstathorwil: this is measured from the plate, right?16:57
thorwilrobsta: yes16:58
robstagood16:58
thorwilbbl17:01
robstahttp://www.gnome.org/~robsta/gtk-css-engine/screenshots/15-single-canvas.png17:17
thorwilrobsta: that looks interesting :)17:19
robstathorwil: it's ugly, but you see how css makes it really easy to match things17:21
* _MMA_ is almost done new Breathe uploads and wiki work. Will have a email post soon.17:29
robstathorwil: here's a better one, check out the focused button http://www.gnome.org/~robsta/gtk-css-engine/screenshots/15-single-canvas.png17:34
thorwilrobsta: ah, that's good17:36
thorwilrobsta: do the edges come from the background layer left visible?17:36
robstadunno17:37
thorwilthose column headers will need something custom. same for comboboxes17:38
thorwil_MMA_: hah, you can't sneak wiki edits past me! :)17:38
thorwildinner, bbl17:38
_MMA_:P17:39
robstathorwil: everythings up now, theme "Thorwil" in gtk-css-engine, gnome svn17:39
robstasee you17:39
_MMA_Email sent.17:51
* _MMA_ now starts on mimitypes.17:58
thorwil_MMA_: mimitypes? cute :)18:13
thorwilnand: hi! designing is easy, eh? ;)19:50
nandyeah right, I was a bit fast :) The point I wanted to make is that the majority of the work is to be done by developers19:52
* nand dinner, brb19:53
nandthorwil: okay, I'm less in a hurry now :) Quoting my answer:20:17
nandRight, I oversimplified :) Designing is not easy. If done consciously, it can be an difficult and intensive work. What I wanted to say is that on the overall the required development effort is higher to much higher than the design one. It depends of course of the project.20:17
nandthorwil: I'm curious : As a designer, what is your perception of the developers and the developer work?20:18
thorwilnand: heh. yes, very true20:18
thorwilnand: developers need a kind of discipline that i lack. competent developers need to be way more clever than i am in some regards. strangely, i can still aid them even regarding purely methodical work where one could think it's about the exact same mindset as for coding20:20
thorwilnand: but note that i have been called a "dry designer" by one of my professors. and one of the first developers i worked with said i would make a good coder :)20:21
nandeheh20:22
nandyou may be one of this rare group of developer having good artistic and design skills!20:22
* nand wishes he would have some, even a minimal set20:23
nandand ok, let's say you want to design an app with Qt Designer, the best WYSYWIG heavy client out there. Have you ever tried? What do you think are the problems of this tool/kind of tool?20:25
thorwilnand: i wonder if a certain kind of blindness inevitably comes from knowing the implementation side of an application ...20:25
nandthorwil: I believe so very much for a lot of developers20:26
nandyour mind analyzes and design things according to implementation limitations you are aware of, and that's natural for a developer20:27
thorwilnand: no, still havn't tried as i have nothing to try and implement with it, wheras i do have some interesting work now :)20:27
thorwilnand: maybe worth communicating that it is not necessarily about different professions, but that much can be solely a matter of perspective20:28
nandin fact, there is no application I know of where the UI was publicly designed before being implemented20:34
nandthat could be an interesting experiment for later : doing a fast web application (or just a wiki) where one can submit its glade/qt designer design, and let other people enhance it20:35
nanda sort of brainstorm, but with exploitable UI by developer included20:36
thorwilnand: but actually it is not direct interface design, but doing a proper analysis and strategic planning beforehand that should be encouraged20:44
nandthorwil: right. But that may be a bit too demanding for an basic open source project with ... limited human ressources :)20:46
nandAFAIK, usually open source project start with one man20:47
nand /woman20:47
nandwith a given set of skills20:48
nandthat is probably the heart of the usability problem of open source apps...20:48
nandproblem is, once the UI is set, it's an hard and boring task to change it20:50
thorwilthat's why i want gui/engine separation combined with an authoring environment. to make GUIs fluid20:51
nande.g. see the time between amarok 1 and 2, where they are redesigning their UI. More than one or even two years now20:51
thorwilnand: with Blender, they are moving from a coding the gui to a coding the environment to define the gui strategy20:52
nandcould you explain?20:52
thorwilnand: it means that issues like the layout of controls is moved out to another level20:53
nandhmm... abstract!20:55
thorwilentirely customizable key-bindings is one of the aspects20:55
thorwilnand: it's the natural conclusion from what has been happening in the big 3d applications since long20:56
thorwilthey offer so damn many features, that at some point users just have to be able to adjust the gui20:56
nandI was meaning that I is quite abstract to me, I am not understanding :)20:57
thorwilnand: i'm not sure how far this will actually go, but it could well mean to have an integrated and "live" gui builder in the application20:58
thorwilnand: so the user can add a widget and bind it to any function offered by the core20:58
nandhmm. I am curious to see that, but on the other end, I rather trust and make evolve an existing and proven framework, like Qt/Qt designer and GTK/Glade, that wait a few years for a ideal framework that may never see the light of the day21:00
thorwilnand: ooh, Blender's framework will be solely for Blender ;)21:01
nandI mean, e.g. Clutter sounds and looks really cool. But it won't be before years before it will prove as a viable solution, than we will get a stable version, and that a WYSIWYG GUI builder will be developed21:01
nandoh, and yeah, that too :)21:01
nandThat's a trait of developers too : they are more pragmatic and less prone to imagination, since they actually deal with the framework21:02
nandand when I'm imaginating a crazy thing, I am calculating at the same time the time necessary for implementation, and that flush my most craziest ideas :)21:03
thorwilnand: if developers were pragamatic, we would have far less duplicated work and languages and toolsets ;)21:04
nandyeah, that the scratch-your-own-itch thing that is unfortunately a little too widespread...21:05
thorwili actually think that many developers are flat out irrational regarding editors, programming languages and toolsets :)21:05
nandand also all these new shiny new things full of buzzwords that are attracting developers like flees to a bulb21:06
thorwilcloud xml on rails!21:06
nandyou forgot the "Kit" at the end :]21:07
thorwilanother try if the forum is good for anything: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6264106#post626410621:09
thorwilgotta run, good night! :)21:09
nandgnight!21:09
* kwwii goes to sleep, dreaming of someday looking this good: http://sinecera.de/sean.png23:26
* _MMA_ *cannot* believe Mr. Connery actually posed for that. *shudders*23:30
kwwiiI think it is from some really crappy film he made in the 80's23:35
kwwiiat least it shows that everyone looks totally stupid from time to time23:36
_MMA_Still!! This was *after* being 007. For shame.23:36
kwwiihey, maybe he just likes boots ;-)23:42
_MMA_Well, yeah. I like a good thigh-high as much as the next guy. I ain't lettin' ya take a picture of it. :P23:43
kwwiiI had to look at the pic very closely before I beleived it was real23:43
_MMA_:)23:44
_MMA_Well, even if it *was* Sean;s head on Burt's body I figure it would look about the same. :P23:45
kwwii:p23:49

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