Re: gEDA-user: why some skip KiCAD and gEDA

[Attila Kinali <attila@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 08 Sep 2011 09:22:27 -0500
John Griessen <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

 
> If anyone has some time for planning user interface changes, I have a few
> low level ideas of what is stopping development toward "complex
> features with ease of use".

Ah! Finaly someone seeing the light! :-)
 
> 4. PCB needs an alternate mode to start in where sequences of common tasks are
> started by a single button, rather than, 1. get in the right tool mode, 2. click mouse.

I think this is the most important of all.
Ie make the common task simple and easy to use. All of them, no exception.

If it takes me a minute to look up what command i need to use to place
a resistor another to figure out how i connect it to the other one, then
something is wrong. Also, these commands need to be easy to remember.
What striked me quite odd with gEDA was that the key commands had no
easy way to remember. I don't actually mind them being two key codes
(at least not for most, some like rotate, mirror etc should be
one key commands), but they should be easy to remember. One easy way
to acheive that is to use the first letter of the most commonly used word
for that operation (it does not need to be in every language, just using
english is enough). Additionally a list of what the word was should be listed
with the list of shortcuts, to make it easy to learn them 

> After these low level stoppers, we should find textbooks to study on GUI design, compare those
> to Orcad twenty years ago, and copy what is not patented.

I doubt anything from that is patented. Patenting wasnt the frency back then.
And even if it would be, i doubt anyone would sue a OSS project for that
kind of stuff (there are far more lucrative targets out there).

As for the GUI design books, if you can find a good one, please let me know.
I'm looking for one as well.

And i'm also available for GUI usability testing.

			Attila Kinali

-- 
The trouble with you, Shev, is you don't say anything until you've saved
up a whole truckload of damned heavy brick arguments and then you dump
them all out and never look at the bleeding body mangled beneath the heap
		-- Tirin, The Dispossessed, U. Le Guin


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