Re: File dialog in wxt does not work

[Philipp K. J. <ja...@ie...>]

On Sat, 20 Sep 2014 07:51:54 +0200
pl...@pi... wrote:

> On 09/20/14 02:28, Philipp K. Janert wrote:
> > Those were the two ideas that came to my mind, too.
> > Additionally, I think the icon could be much enhanced
> > with the addition of a big red arrow from the graph to
> > the clipboard. In fact, I'd interchange the current
> > positions of the graph and the clipboard in the icon,
> > so that the arrow would align with the typical (western)
> > workflow "left to right".
> 
> Oh, for pity's sake no more dumb-assed,  " you have just pressed X", 
> "are you sure" windozian messages.
> 
> I do not want half my work flow to be dismissing stupid messages
> telling what I've just done.

I can agree with that.

> 
> This is all part of the universal obscurity-by-icons problem. Thirty 
> year ago it would have been the word "copy" , now everything has to
> be an icon. In the pressure to save space the icons have to be small
> and therefore have limited means of communicating anything. They are
> just enough to be reminders once you know what the interface does.

I can agree with that, too - but what are
you gonna do about it?

> 
> That's what tool-tips are for. That is a fairly standard, cross
> platform technique.If you don't know what something does , hover.

The problem was that I didn't know I didn't know.
I was certain (though wrong) that I knew what it
did. And I have had enough trouble with gnuplot
terminals that, when I got no visible response, 
I assumed that there was a malfunction/bug, rather 
than a misuse on my part.

> 
> The "top left" convention is for MENUS, this is an icon tool bar.
> There is no convention that says the first entry on a tool bar should
> bring up a file_open dialogue.
> 
> Sorry, Philipp, you just fooled yourself by making unfounded
> assumptions that wxt would do the same thing and the qt terminal
> instead of trying to discover what the (new to you ) interface did.

I disagree. "Top left" is a sufficiently widely followed 
convention, even for icon bars, that I cannot accept the
"unfounded assumption" statement.

> 
> I've been using wxt pretty much all along with gnuplot and did not
> find this feature at first, until the day I decided to find out what
> all the buttons did. The tool-tips soon made it clear.
>
> This is a very useful feature and it is very useful in that it gives
> you exactly what you are looking at. I use this almost exclusively
> for creating permanent copy of my graphs since the png terminal
> produce something so different from what is on the screen.: different
> fonts, different line widths, different colours....  Usually by the
> time I get to want output, I've got the graph looking the way I need
> it. I do not want something else stored or in hardcopy.

Question for you: what do you choose to paste the copy into?
Gimp? Or something else? Any experience to share?

> 
> Now if qt allows saving the _screen image_ of the graph in png or 
> similar format, this would be a good addition to wxt. Firing up Gimp, 
> just to do a paste and then use its file "export" dialogue is a time 
> waster.
> 
> Adding a 'save to file' icon that takes the same image that goes to 
> clipboard would be good enhancement, should anyone feel inclined.

Thanks.

> 
> Peter.
> 
> 
> >
> > Another idea is to change the functionality - I am not so
> > familiar with the capabilities of wxt, but would it be
> > possible to save the graph to PDF/PNG immediately, rather
> > than (merely) to the clipboard? This would naturally lead
> > to a file-selection dialog, as in the qt terminal.
> >
> > I should add that I really like this feature in principle,
> > because the workflow of saving (actually: exporting) graphs
> > from gnuplot has always been a bit awkward (5 steps: set t,
> > set o, replot, set o, set t). So, being able to do it all
> > in one mouse-click is a huge improvement (in my opinion),
> > and also brings gnuplot's behavior closer to what current
> > users have come to expect from applications.
> >
> >> >
> >> >Actually, I'll agree with Philipp: nothing about the GUI options
> >> >in the wxt plot window is immediately clear. For example, what is
> >> >the cross-hair cursor supposed to do, as you move it around?
> >> >
> >> >Allin Cottrell
> 
> 
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