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#30 GUI issues
Hi, I'm using your program for the first time today and
I think it's really great!
I'm writing this seemingly nit-picky bug report because
one of my biggest complaints as a mathematician is that
people write very powerful scientific software all the
time that is next to impossible to use because of the
awful user interface. I just started using
scigraphica, and I think your GUI is by far one of the
BEST user interfaces I've ever seen for scientific
software. I do want to make these suggestions, though,
because your GUI could be even better if you were to
polish it in a few places. First year calculus
students everywhere will thank you for that kind of
attention to detail. I'll probably submit several of
these over the next couple of weeks as I find things.
Thanks for your time!
0. I'm using the 0.7.1 RPM with Red Hat 7.0, using the
Raleigh GTK theme and Lucida 14pt for the system font.
1. I've had problems with drop-down lists being hard to
see. For example, in a 2-D plot window, double click
on the plot itself, bring up the layer control window,
click on "axes" in the tree. The re-scale drop-down
list appears with horizontal and vertical scroll bars
when I push the drop button, the options are invisible,
the scroll bars are scrunched up, and it's basically
not useable. Maybe change the layout parameters to let
the list get bigger when you resize the window. The
same sort of think happens under the "datasets
properties" node of the tree. The "select data set"
list appears with scroll bars.
2. In the "datasets" node of this same tree, add a data
set, and in the dialog that appears, pick data columns
for X and Y, then change the "Dataset style" to lines.
The selections for X and Y seem to vanish. I see
where they go, in that you have different kinds of
parameters for different kinds of plots, and if I
change it back to plotting points, my input appears
again. The window is just confusing because the way
it's arranged, it doesn't look like the drop-down list
for the dataset style should have any effect on the
column choices. Maybe you could put that widget in the
title of the frame around the choices (replacing where
it says "Columns").
3. Back in the "datasets" part of the "layer control"
dialog, if you add a dataset, then double click on it
in the list, nothing happens. I was hoping to edit it
by double clicking, but it didn't work. It took me a
second glance to see the "edit" button up above. Also,
I can't imagine what the "refresh" button does.
4. In the big plot window, there are two pairs of zoom
buttons (left side and on top). It's not too hard to
figure out what they do different, one for the graph
axes and one for the actual drawing view. This
functionality is a really great idea, but the buttons
are a bit confusing. Maybe use different icons: Put a
picture of a piece of paper with a dog-eared corner
under the magnifying glass in the top buttons to
indicate that you're zooming on a document, and put a
pair of axes under the magnifying glass in the side
buttons to indicate that you're zooming on a graph.
Also, you could add information to the tool tips, "zoom
in on page", "zoom in on graph", something like that.
5. The icon for zooming on the graph by selecting a
rectangle is a little out of place. Why don't you put
it with the other zoom tools? It would also help if
you put labels around the groups of toolbar buttons,
like "Axis scales", "Panning", etc.
6. The "fit page" icon is also a little out of place.
It doesn't go with all the axis controls next to it,
because it resizes the view. That belongs better in
the top toolbar next to the zoom-in-on-document buttons.
7. The right-mouse button menu is hard to find
sometimes, and is incomplete. Since you have so much
functionality in this window, why not put a menubar in
it? I'd reserve the right-mouse menu for
object-specific short cuts and put stuff like "File
save" in the menubar.
8. I created a text object by accident and needed to
delete it. There's nothing in the right-mouse menu for
deleting an object. I guessed and pushed the delete
key, which worked, but the fact that there's a paste
item in the menu but no cut or delete is kind of strange.
9. I really prefer the built-in GTK file selection
dialog. It has a lot of nice features, like buttons
taking you to the desktop or home directory that I find
very useful.
By the way, having drawing tools where I can draw right
on the graph is an EXCELLENT idea! You have no idea
how much trouble I've had in the past putting arrows
and things on graphs to point out features.
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Thanks very much for your feedback! We will certainly look
at the above and do our best to make improvements.
If you could impress upon some of your first year calculus
students to get involved in some way with scigraphica, that
would be event better ;-)
Conrad