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List:       koffice
Subject:    Re: KOffice:: Krita TRUNK vs. Eigen
From:       "Steven D'Aprano" <steve () pearwood ! info>
Date:       2008-09-14 1:39:34
Message-ID: 200809141139.35290.steve () pearwood ! info
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On Sun, 14 Sep 2008 06:09:20 am James Richard Tyrer wrote:
> Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
...
> > James and I go back a long time. He's been telling me I was coding
> > the wrong application, and worse, an application he didn't have any
> > use for, since 2003, in mail, on mailing lists, on the dot and on
> > every website he could find that discussed Krita.
>
> Interesting rhetorical device to distort what I said so that you can
> claim that you are right and I am wrong.

I don't see any such "rhetorical device". What I see is Boudewijn 
presenting your words accurately but in the worst possible light, which 
is not the same as distorting them. It may not be entirely fair, but 
nor is it dishonest. Sometimes the most unfair thing somebody can do is 
to accurately summarise your own words back at you.


> What I said were three things which are still true:
>
> 1.	Most users of an office suite have little use for an application
> 	such as Krita.  What they need is a basic paint and drawing
> 	application to do basic design.  I guess that this does mean
> 	that Krita is the wrong application for what many users need.

How do you know what "most users" need? Intuition? Convenience survey of 
a few friends? Random surveys of users? How many people, and what sort 
of users?

It's probably telling that Microsoft Office only includes the most 
primitive graphics applications, and OpenOffice only a relatively 
rudimentary vector graphics app. But is this because users have no need 
for such an app, or are users not demanding such an app because they 
lack experience with such apps?


> 2.	Krita will not do what I need.  I need a drawing application
> 	that allows total digital control of all operations like the old
> 	and outdated Xfig does.

Do you get any use out of Krita? Why are you using a bitmap painting 
application if what you need is a CAD-like vector application like 
XFig?


> 3.	I see no reason to have two separate applications (Krita &
> 	Karbon).  It would be more useful to me to have a single
> 	application that would do both pixel and vector graphics.

Pixel and vector graphics programs have been separated into different 
applications since at least 1984 when Apple brought out the first 
Macintosh with MacPaint and MacDraw. There are some graphics packages 
that combined the two, like the obsolete SuperPaint and the still 
existing Canvas. The two are different-but-related, like text editing 
and word processing.

I can see advantages to including a rich set of vector graphics on a 
pixel canvas. Doing it the other way around is generally less useful, 
but still a feature worth offering. However, the complexity cost for 
both the developer and user is significant: a full-featured 
pixel+vector graphics program would have the complexity of Photoshop 
and Illustrator combined (or if you prefer, Gimp and Xfig, although 
hopefully not with the UI of either of them). To present that in a 
single consistent UI without overwhelming the user would be 
challenging, to say the least, and it would be a application aimed at 
power-users. Whether such an advanced tool belongs in an office suite 
is open for debate.


Regards,



-- 
Steven
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