I've been throwing around this idea of links in my head. Basically this is a GUI element that describes when two objects have a relationship to each other. There are alot of relationships that currently exist in Inkscape, and there are going to be lots more. Bulia has added in support for clone, which makes two objects identical aside from their location. This can be very cool. But how do you know that they're together?

I'm thinking that there should be a 50% alpha line between two objects that are linked, with an icon in the middle that describes how they are linked. I want something non-intrusive, but yet can be seen. I think that this should only be shown when the object is selected.

As far as links to be shown, another one that exists today but is hard for users to visualize is between gradients. You can have one linear gradient that is both used circularly, but also used in a variety of different obejcts all over the screen. When you edit the colors in this gradient, all of them change. This can be useful, but also confusing to a new user.

The question then comes to focus: Okay smartypants, what happens when there are five objects using a gradient? Do you interconnect all of them? Hmmm, good question.

Other things that could use links are things like attaching objects, or attaching objects to guidelines. Peter had support for this in Inkscape a while back, but took it out as there was no way to control it. It is a really cool feature when you need it, we need to come up with a good way to control it.


posted Apr 29, 2004 | permanent link