Crop in IE

Hi,

I just asked myself if we really need the normal crop method?
I was at my uncle's birthday last week and I already evangelized him to use
digiKam :-)
When he is cropping images, he ALWAYS uses the RatioCropTool, even when he is
doing a manual selection with no ratio at all.
He has given me two reasons:

1. He is not able to drag the normal selection like in the RatioCropTool
2. He likes to see the Rule-of-Thirds

He also said that it is somehow confusing to have two crop methods, especially
when you use IE for the first time. The action is always disabled (sure) and
you need to do a selection first (which is not that obvious).

So my proposal would be to remove the normal crop action and rename the
ratiocrop. I have never seen any other application that provides two or more
crop actions / tools, it is always put together into one tool.

What do you think?

Andi
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[Gilles Caulier-4]

Andi,

I thinking something like this too.

I recieve too some remark about this duplicates actions.

I can't see any way where single crop cannot be done with ratio crop
tool. Before to remove something. I recommend to ask to users. Perhaps
they know a situation where single crop is really mandatory...

Gilles

2009/5/20 Andi Clemens <[hidden email]>:

> Hi,
>
> I just asked myself if we really need the normal crop method?
> I was at my uncle's birthday last week and I already evangelized him to use
> digiKam :-)
> When he is cropping images, he ALWAYS uses the RatioCropTool, even when he is
> doing a manual selection with no ratio at all.
> He has given me two reasons:
>
> 1. He is not able to drag the normal selection like in the RatioCropTool
> 2. He likes to see the Rule-of-Thirds
>
> He also said that it is somehow confusing to have two crop methods, especially
> when you use IE for the first time. The action is always disabled (sure) and
> you need to do a selection first (which is not that obvious).
>
> So my proposal would be to remove the normal crop action and rename the
> ratiocrop. I have never seen any other application that provides two or more
> crop actions / tools, it is always put together into one tool.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Andi
> _______________________________________________
> Digikam-devel mailing list
> [hidden email]
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/digikam-devel
>

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[Gilles Caulier-4]

2009/5/20 Gilles Caulier <[hidden email]>:
> Andi,
>
> I thinking something like this too.
>
> I recieve too some remark about this duplicates actions.
>
> I can't see any way where single crop cannot be done with ratio crop
> tool. Before to remove something. I recommend to ask to users. Perhaps
> they know a situation where single crop is really mandatory...

Ah, i remember a situation : zoom is high level to the image and crop.
you cannot do it with ratio crop tool.

Gilles
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[Matthias Welwarsky]

On Wednesday 20 May 2009 09:42:50 Andi Clemens wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I just asked myself if we really need the normal crop method?
> I was at my uncle's birthday last week and I already evangelized him to use
> digiKam :-)
> When he is cropping images, he ALWAYS uses the RatioCropTool, even when he
> is doing a manual selection with no ratio at all.
> He has given me two reasons:
>
> 1. He is not able to drag the normal selection like in the RatioCropTool
> 2. He likes to see the Rule-of-Thirds

Interestingly, that's also my approach. I have never used anything else but
the RatioCropTool.

> He also said that it is somehow confusing to have two crop methods,
> especially when you use IE for the first time. The action is always
> disabled (sure) and you need to do a selection first (which is not that
> obvious).
>
> So my proposal would be to remove the normal crop action and rename the
> ratiocrop. I have never seen any other application that provides two or
> more crop actions / tools, it is always put together into one tool.
>
> What do you think?

I agree, but I see the following problem: There are for sure users of the
"other" crop tool. Can we limit their confusion about losing "their" tool a
bit? Not that I have an idea yet, how to...


>
> Andi
> _______________________________________________
> Digikam-devel mailing list
> [hidden email]
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/digikam-devel

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Sure, I was not going to simply remove things :D
Users have to be asked. BUT: I really don't think the normal crop is really
useful.
digiKam is for photos, and photos have some defined dimension.
When I sent them to a print service, I need them either to be 3:2 or 4:3.
Sure I can have 1:1 or some manual ratio, but this is rather uncommon.

Also I'm pretty sure new users will not understand why Crop is disabled. You
get no feedback from the mouse cursor when hovering over an image, so they
might never new that you can select a region in the editor.
My cousin has used digiKam once and she also tried to crop something, but it
was disabled. I didn't help her because I wanted to see what she will do now.
After cursing (:-)) she finally used the ratio crop tool and was quite happy.
She never touched the normal crop again and I think she still doesn't know
that you can select a region.

This is a major problem. We need either change the cursor to some crosshair
pointer, or we need to always enable the crop action, but give a warning, like
in the red eye tool.

But I still think this action is totally useless (never thought I would say
this about a digiKam feature, but it is actually true).
Also the selection widget is much better in RatioCrop...

So what to do? We could run a poll on the digiKam website (and write a mail to
the users ML), but this wouldn't reach all users for sure.

Andi

On Wednesday 20 May 2009 09:48:05 Gilles Caulier wrote:

> Andi,
>
> I thinking something like this too.
>
> I recieve too some remark about this duplicates actions.
>
> I can't see any way where single crop cannot be done with ratio crop
> tool. Before to remove something. I recommend to ask to users. Perhaps
> they know a situation where single crop is really mandatory...
>
> Gilles
>
> 2009/5/20 Andi Clemens <[hidden email]>:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I just asked myself if we really need the normal crop method?
> > I was at my uncle's birthday last week and I already evangelized him to
> > use digiKam :-)
> > When he is cropping images, he ALWAYS uses the RatioCropTool, even when
> > he is doing a manual selection with no ratio at all.
> > He has given me two reasons:
> >
> > 1. He is not able to drag the normal selection like in the RatioCropTool
> > 2. He likes to see the Rule-of-Thirds
> >
> > He also said that it is somehow confusing to have two crop methods,
> > especially when you use IE for the first time. The action is always
> > disabled (sure) and you need to do a selection first (which is not that
> > obvious).
> >
> > So my proposal would be to remove the normal crop action and rename the
> > ratiocrop. I have never seen any other application that provides two or
> > more crop actions / tools, it is always put together into one tool.
> >
> > What do you think?
> >
> > Andi
> > _______________________________________________
> > Digikam-devel mailing list
> > [hidden email]
> > https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/digikam-devel
>
> _______________________________________________
> Digikam-devel mailing list
> [hidden email]
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/digikam-devel

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[Gilles Caulier-4]

As, it's always easy to remove code instead to add (:=)))... i
recommend to post something in digikam.org (blog entry for ex.)

As rss feed from digikam.org is relayed everywhere (i'm always
suprized by the audience when i check web log from the server), it
really a good way to have a quick feedback from users.

Anyway, simple crop is an old an primary implementation in editor done
by Renchi in the past, implemented before all current tools ... Now,
we have something better of course...

Gilles

2009/5/20 Andi Clemens <[hidden email]>:

> Sure, I was not going to simply remove things :D
> Users have to be asked. BUT: I really don't think the normal crop is really
> useful.
> digiKam is for photos, and photos have some defined dimension.
> When I sent them to a print service, I need them either to be 3:2 or 4:3.
> Sure I can have 1:1 or some manual ratio, but this is rather uncommon.
>
> Also I'm pretty sure new users will not understand why Crop is disabled. You
> get no feedback from the mouse cursor when hovering over an image, so they
> might never new that you can select a region in the editor.
> My cousin has used digiKam once and she also tried to crop something, but it
> was disabled. I didn't help her because I wanted to see what she will do now.
> After cursing (:-)) she finally used the ratio crop tool and was quite happy.
> She never touched the normal crop again and I think she still doesn't know
> that you can select a region.
>
> This is a major problem. We need either change the cursor to some crosshair
> pointer, or we need to always enable the crop action, but give a warning, like
> in the red eye tool.
>
> But I still think this action is totally useless (never thought I would say
> this about a digiKam feature, but it is actually true).
> Also the selection widget is much better in RatioCrop...
>
> So what to do? We could run a poll on the digiKam website (and write a mail to
> the users ML), but this wouldn't reach all users for sure.
>
> Andi
>
> On Wednesday 20 May 2009 09:48:05 Gilles Caulier wrote:
>> Andi,
>>
>> I thinking something like this too.
>>
>> I recieve too some remark about this duplicates actions.
>>
>> I can't see any way where single crop cannot be done with ratio crop
>> tool. Before to remove something. I recommend to ask to users. Perhaps
>> they know a situation where single crop is really mandatory...
>>
>> Gilles
>>
>> 2009/5/20 Andi Clemens <[hidden email]>:
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > I just asked myself if we really need the normal crop method?
>> > I was at my uncle's birthday last week and I already evangelized him to
>> > use digiKam :-)
>> > When he is cropping images, he ALWAYS uses the RatioCropTool, even when
>> > he is doing a manual selection with no ratio at all.
>> > He has given me two reasons:
>> >
>> > 1. He is not able to drag the normal selection like in the RatioCropTool
>> > 2. He likes to see the Rule-of-Thirds
>> >
>> > He also said that it is somehow confusing to have two crop methods,
>> > especially when you use IE for the first time. The action is always
>> > disabled (sure) and you need to do a selection first (which is not that
>> > obvious).
>> >
>> > So my proposal would be to remove the normal crop action and rename the
>> > ratiocrop. I have never seen any other application that provides two or
>> > more crop actions / tools, it is always put together into one tool.
>> >
>> > What do you think?
>> >
>> > Andi
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Digikam-devel mailing list
>> > [hidden email]
>> > https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/digikam-devel
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Digikam-devel mailing list
>> [hidden email]
>> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/digikam-devel
>
> _______________________________________________
> Digikam-devel mailing list
> [hidden email]
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/digikam-devel
>

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On Wednesday 20 May 2009 09:48:05 Gilles Caulier wrote:
> Andi,
>
> I thinking something like this too.
>
> I recieve too some remark about this duplicates actions.
>
> I can't see any way where single crop cannot be done with ratio crop
> tool. Before to remove something. I recommend to ask to users. Perhaps
> they know a situation where single crop is really mandatory...

Not in current state of plugins canvas. Aspect Ratio Crop isn't very precise
(as most of plugins) due to lack of zooming. Also
- interface can be intimidating for beginner;
- access and execution is cumbersome comparing to simple selection and click
on toolbar icon;
- while digiKam is for photos you don't only print photos in most common
proportions - user can use those photos for web design, banners, presentations
where is can be done in any proportion (s)he wants;

Simple crop can  be dropped but only after rethinking and redoing of whole
plugin interface. Not earlier.

Just my 2 ec.

m.

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[Gilles Caulier-4]

2009/5/20 Mikolaj Machowski <[hidden email]>:

> On Wednesday 20 May 2009 09:48:05 Gilles Caulier wrote:
>> Andi,
>>
>> I thinking something like this too.
>>
>> I recieve too some remark about this duplicates actions.
>>
>> I can't see any way where single crop cannot be done with ratio crop
>> tool. Before to remove something. I recommend to ask to users. Perhaps
>> they know a situation where single crop is really mandatory...
>
> Not in current state of plugins canvas. Aspect Ratio Crop isn't very precise
> (as most of plugins) due to lack of zooming. Also
> - interface can be intimidating for beginner;
> - access and execution is cumbersome comparing to simple selection and click
> on toolbar icon;
> - while digiKam is for photos you don't only print photos in most common
> proportions - user can use those photos for web design, banners, presentations
> where is can be done in any proportion (s)he wants;
>
> Simple crop can  be dropped but only after rethinking and redoing of whole
> plugin interface. Not earlier.

I'm agree with Mik.

As we have planed to rewrite/factorize all plugins preview widget with
zooming/panning in next coding sprint (Genoa, October 2009), i
recommend to wait until this event.

Gilles
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Sure... like I said: I don't want to change anything right now :-)
It was just a suggestion.

Andi

On Wednesday 20 May 2009 16:20:50 Gilles Caulier wrote:

> 2009/5/20 Mikolaj Machowski <[hidden email]>:
> > On Wednesday 20 May 2009 09:48:05 Gilles Caulier wrote:
> >> Andi,
> >>
> >> I thinking something like this too.
> >>
> >> I recieve too some remark about this duplicates actions.
> >>
> >> I can't see any way where single crop cannot be done with ratio crop
> >> tool. Before to remove something. I recommend to ask to users. Perhaps
> >> they know a situation where single crop is really mandatory...
> >
> > Not in current state of plugins canvas. Aspect Ratio Crop isn't very
> > precise (as most of plugins) due to lack of zooming. Also
> > - interface can be intimidating for beginner;
> > - access and execution is cumbersome comparing to simple selection and
> > click on toolbar icon;
> > - while digiKam is for photos you don't only print photos in most common
> > proportions - user can use those photos for web design, banners,
> > presentations where is can be done in any proportion (s)he wants;
> >
> > Simple crop can  be dropped but only after rethinking and redoing of
> > whole plugin interface. Not earlier.
>
> I'm agree with Mik.
>
> As we have planed to rewrite/factorize all plugins preview widget with
> zooming/panning in next coding sprint (Genoa, October 2009), i
> recommend to wait until this event.
>
> Gilles
> _______________________________________________
> Digikam-devel mailing list
> [hidden email]
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/digikam-devel

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On Wednesday 20 May 2009 16:38:16 Andi Clemens wrote:
> Sure... like I said: I don't want to change anything right now :-)
> It was just a suggestion.
>
Good suggestion :) It should be one of the goals of plugins interface redesign
- digiKam isn't just ready for it yet.

m.
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