On Mon, 2007-08-13 at 11:25 +0930, Young, Robert wrote: > >I'm strong considering splitting diagram editing into a > >"normal" mode and a "text-edit" mode. It will allow for more > >powerful text editing down the road, use of more shortcuts in > >normal mode, avoidance of the "Delete destroys the object" in > >text-edit mode and more. While I have no problem with how to > >exit text-edit mode (Esc or clicking elsewhere), I have my > >doubts about what would be best for entering. My ideas so far are > > > >1) Press "Enter" to start editing text. Pro: Frees all other > >keys for shortcuts. Con: Non-obvious > >2) Press any letter key to start editing. Pro: Natural start > >of writing for many people. Con: Loses some shortcuts, can't > >start writing with non-letters or composite keys. > >3) Press any non-modified key to start editing. Pro: Fully > >transparent for English-speaking people. Con: Loses a few > >more shortcuts, can't start writing with more complex input. > >4) Press any part of a character to start editing. Pro: > >Transparent for everyone. Con: Loses a lot of shortcuts, > >including many alt and some ctrl-shift ones. > > Text edit mode is a good idea!! > > None of the suggested approaches are what I'd describe as "obvious". > Either single clicking on text, or double clicking would be the best > approach - IMHO these are more obvious. > > Currently if you select an object with text (or a text object) text mode > is enabled immediately. What if this was changed so clicking just > selecting the object. Then if the next click on the object started Text > Edit mode? > > Double clicking opens the properties. An alternative would be to change > this for just text, or for all objects? Changing existing behaviour can > be troublesome, though it makes sense (to me) to double click to get > properties for a line, say, and double click to edit a text object.
I'm still feeling free to change behaviours, given that we're in pre-1.0. And this part really needs improvement. > >I'm favoring 3 over 2, even though it'd rule out using '1' for > >zoom 100%. I think 4 would be confusing and hard to code. > >But is 1 too non-intuitive? Are there better ways? What do > >other programs get away with? > > A quick survey of the tools I often use : Inkscape uses the double click > approach. MS Word uses a mixture - double click for WordArt and the > existing Dia approach for text boxes - this is inconsistent. GIMP > requires selection of Text Tool and then single click. Windows explorer > uses the click once, click again approach for renaming files. Nautilus > requires <f2> or right click -> Rename. JGraphPad uses double click to > edit text object. So, there's no "standard" except that the use of the > mouse is common. Anyone know what Visio, Omnigraffle and other more Dia-like programs do? I see no reason why starting text edit should not involve the keyboard, given that editing usually involves the keyboard right afterwards. -Lars _______________________________________________ Dia-list mailing list Dia-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/dia-list FAQ at http://live.gnome.org/Dia/Faq Main page at http://live.gnome.org/Dia
