Hi, Dňa Thu, 30 Jan 2014 06:41:34 -0800 Octavio Alvarez <alvarezp alvarezp ods org> napísal:
Interesting. Have you found a specific "oooooh, now I get it" moment?I am not sure, if i understand this properly. Can you be more verbose, please?Yes: from your description I understand that after your students failed to understand Dia, and you gave them a description of the basics or the program they succeeded.
I wonder if the explanation given to them was verbal or written. If verbal, I imagined, maybe some students may have reacted at the exact moment during your explanation when they finally understand what they were doing wrong. Or maybe they have expressed it in some other way.
My description was verbose with the demonstration at once. It was very simple, e.g.: + take look into shape lists and select appropriate one + click on shape and click to workplace to add it + select proper line type + find the connection point (by change the shape color) + select text tool + add descriptive name + here you can enable snap to grid + snapping is as this + etc My students are lazy to read anything (except the facebook ;-) ), they have a problem to understand the written description at all. Not, they have not a mental problems (i am not sure with this English term), but they are modern young people (cca 17-18 years old)...
In any case, this could mean you may have some specific UI aspects that confuse or that are counter-intuituve for Dia newbies.
They (students) was really new to this type of software. They mostly never draw any chart where the connections are moving with the objects, etc. But recently i tell them only: there is a grid shape somewhere, find and use it - and they found and used it :-) Then, as i wrote early, it is a great and usable tool. I am not sure now, is somewhere the tutorial in "Get started" style?
This could be great feedback on usability for the project, either to improve documentation or to improve the interface itself.
For me, the most missing GUI parts are: + toolbar with my common task (best is customization) - properties (colors, etc), bring to front/back, align... + there is not a cursor change, when it is above the object resize point, the GUI feedback is missing + snap to objects around, see below There is a simple interface to select the line width and colors (below the shape list), but this affect only new shapes, not existing. And the recently colors in this interface is not corresponding with the recent colors from object's properties... When i try similar software, i see as really useful the snap to neighboring (or another at all) shapes directly while putting, moving or resizing the object. There was simple (temporary) snap lines drew, when the object's borders are near another object. The snapping is missing for me, e.g. for flowcharts. I want to have flowchart shapes aligned to center. But it is terrible to center them while moving the object. Yes, i know about snap to grid, but when the objects takes different width, it is terrible and i must to use menu for this. Yes, i can set the same width for shapes, but writing into the shape sometime resize it - there is not a text wrap option? Recently i used some UML shapes for another purpose (the class is nice shape with big title - then i used it to describe Raspberry Pi IO pins), but the auto-width was very tiresome for me :-( I solved it by adding some spaces in property names, but have a option to allow set the exact dimensions (e.g. by mouse) would be super. Allowing to hide (enable/disable, not delete) whole shape lists is missing too. Now i have a lot of shapes (Debian's package with extra shapes). When i am searching some shape, the list of lists is growing, but i cannot remove individual items from it, only clear whole list. In this list of shape lists i have three shape lists separated by line and they are not deleted with others. But i cannot remember how i add them here :-) Then i cannot change add nor delete these special items now... I can create the custom shapes list, by moving shapes from another lists, or enable/disable individual shapes in list. But adding new line from GUI is not preserved. Better SVG support can drastically improve the shapes (and then whole diagram) look too. IMO the most missing part are the color transitions (eh my poor English - set the two /or more/ colors to transition from one to another) and transparency. End for now :-) It can seem, that i can tell only bad things about dia, but i exactly mention what i feel as missing and i do not waste time with writing what is cool ;-) Perhaps i forgot to mention something, and perhaps i don't know how to do some things only. regards -- Slavko http://slavino.sk
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