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List:       koffice-devel
Subject:    Re: KPresenter usability review.
From:       Thorsten Zachmann <t.zachmann () zagge ! de>
Date:       2005-09-29 15:22:46
Message-ID: 200509291722.47348.t.zachmann () zagge ! de
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On Tuesday 27 September 2005 21:03, Alan Horkan wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Sep 2005, Thomas Zander wrote:
> > On Mon, Sep 26, 2005 at 08:52:01PM +0200, Thorsten Zachmann wrote:
> > > On Sunday 25 September 2005 21:26, Thomas Zander wrote:

> > > > should snap to center of pages and center of objects when dragging
> > > > the help lines.
> > >
> > > How should they snap to center of pages and center of object when
> > > dragging? Can you explain this a little bit more detailed please, as I
> > > have no idea what you mean by this.
> >
> > Same way all 'snapping' happens.  When the user drags the ruler the
> > position of the ruler is mostly defined by the position of the mouse,
> > except for a section of, say, 6 pixels left, or right, of the center of
> > the page. When the mouse enters there the result will be that the ruler
> > sits at the center itself.
> > I also suggest you startup kivio which IIRC does this (I'm X less, so
> > I'll try in a little)
> >
> > > > Additionally it would help to rename them to 'guides' and draw them
> > > > in a different color instead of the outline they are now.
> > >
> > > Which color dou you propose?
> >
> > Red is probably best.  But a little experimentation would help.
>
> Kivio uses blue (the guide lines are red while being positioned but blue
> once you release).
>
> This old report against Kontour wanted to be able to configure the colour
> and style (dashes, dots) of the Guides or Help lines.
> http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=34939
> I'm not entirely sure but I think it was because if you are using a dense
> grid of guides the default style is too distracting.
>
> Karbon didn't have guides but Tim may have changed that already
> http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=108781
>

I had a look at the help lines/guide lines in kpresenter and kivio and I 
really like the implementation of the guides in kivio. I think it would be 
great if we could generalise the guide lines and move them to kolibs so that 
ever application can use them, and not everyone has to implement them in the 
application itself. If you think this is a good idea I'll start to adapt the 
sliders from kivio to be usable also for kpresenter. 

Here the reasons I like the guide lines in kivio. They are not so deep in the 
code as the kpresenter once are in the canvas code. They are simplier as all 
the handling of the repainting is done in the guideline. It saves a copy of 
the buffer (only the part it uses) before it paints itself over it. So the 
content of the buffer can be restored when moving them around without 
repainting all the object below. Also they don't have the problems the help 
lines in kpresenter have when you start moving you get shadows of the help 
lines which only disappear when the hole slide is repainted.

Who did write the old code? There is no copyright in it. Does anyone know any 
problems with the kivio guideline implementation?

Would it be ok if the guide lines are allways on top of the objects. 
kpresenter currently also supports at the moment to have them below the 
objects. What do you think?

Have a nice day,

Thorsten
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