[PATCH] Re: gEDA-dev: libgeda, gschem: New print dialog

[Peter TB Brett]

On Tuesday 01 August 2006 10:02, Tomaz Solc wrote:
> Hi
>
> > I have a new version of the patch that's much 'nicer' (it uses GTK
> > subclassing properly), but Sourceforge keeps timing out when I try and
> > upload it, so I can't attach it to the tracker item!
> >
> > I'm attaching it to this e-mail FYI -- I'll upload it to SF as and when
> > it becomes non-broken again.
>
> I've just tried your patch and I like it. The new dialog is much nicer
> than the original one. I have a couple of feature requests though:

Glad you like it.

> Could you add a setting to the print dialog that would allow you to
> scale all the font sizes in the postscript output? If you print large
> schematics on a small paper the default size gets too small to be
> readable. This is a matter of adjusting one line in the postscript file.
> I currently do it by hand and I was thinking of making a patch myself,
> but since you are just redesigning the print dialog...

I'm afraid that that would require a rewrite of the actual libgeda printing 
code, whereas I was working very much within the current interface for 
printing (just adding a prettier frontend it).  I'm afraid that's out of the 
remit of this particular patch.

> I believe a better place for the "print" button would be to the right of
> the "command" text box (like the "Save as" button is placed). This would
> be a bit less confusing (should I press the "Save as" button or "Print"
> when saving to a file?).

FYI, the new design is based heavily on the GNOME print dialog, which indeed 
has a 'Save As' button to choose the PS filename and a separate 'Print' 
button, so I think the current layout is pretty reasonable (although if 
there's overwhelming support for changing it I'm happy to).  How about if I 
move the 'Save As' button to the left of the field showing the filename?
I'm definitely not happy with moving the 'Yes, do something' button from where 
it is, not matter what it does or what it's caption is, mainly because that 
would be really non-discoverable and in violation of just about every HID 
guidelines in existence.

> And one last thing: on my system (using GTK 2.8.18), when I click the
> "Save as" button, the stock GTK "Save as" dialog pops up, offering
> another chance to choose where to save the postscript file. I think this
> is unnecessary, since I already chose where I wish to save the
> postscript in the main dialog.

The "Save as" button is necessary: if I want to save my PostScript somewhere 
radically different from the location of the schematic file, having a file 
chooser dialog makes life a lot easier.  Also, think of all of the 
not-especially-UNIX-literate engineering types who apparently use gschem, and 
would have difficulty navigating a UNIX file heirachy blind.

I wanted to use a GtkFileChooserButton rather than a button+field, but they 
were only introduced in GTK+ 2.6, so I couldn't.

Sorry to be so negative about your suggestions: I really appreciate the 
feedback.  I did have a good think about whether I could do the things you 
asked in a user-friendly and discoverable way before saying I couldn't!

Peter

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