[ptx] thoughts for hugin UI, post 0.5

[Tijmen]

On Thursday 26 May 2005 08:20, Rob Park wrote:
> On 5/25/05, Rob Park <rbpark at gmail.com> wrote:
> > http://artography.ath.cx/hugin-new4.png
> >
> > Good? Bad?
>
> Alright, szunyog sent me a message off-list expressing his approval,
> but I've been reading through the HIG (Human Interface Guidelines),
> and it's led me to rearrange it like this:
>
> http://artography.ath.cx/hugin-new6.png
>
> Though I have a couple problems with this:
>
> First, the HIG recommends that for something like this, all the
> widgets be aligned on the same axis (kinda hard to describe, but if
> you look closely at the Stitcher section, the "nona" drop down box and
> the "Poly3..." drop down box are aligned properly, but they're not
> quite aligned with the widgets in the other sections). I'm not
> entirely sure how to even accomplish this.
>
> Second, I don't like the Best Fit button in the Field of View
> section... having it just on one line doesn't properly convey that it
> affects both buttons, having it stretch to cover both rows makes it a
> weirdly shaped button, and having it the way it is in the screenshot
> (halfway between lines) just looks weird.
>
> So, I made this instead, which is a compromise between what the HIG
> wants and what looks good to me:
>
> http://artography.ath.cx/hugin-new5.png
>
> I really want to know what everybody thinks of this, even just
> nitpicky details, I want to make it perfect ;)

I think it's a great improvement to move the "stitch now" button to below.
Form-like windows are allways filled in top to bottom, so it's weird to have 
the "finish" button on top again.

I myself am a great fan of the more vertical layout of new6, but you have to 
see it in context. I think most people use hugin as fullscreen, and heving a 
vertical layout in mostly oblong pane, gives you either very much unused 
space, or a very noisy ui if the elements were to float free to the edges 
(think gridbag).

What my experience with hugin is that it has a lot of very advanced functions 
of which I don't have a clue what they do.

So maybe the "stitch" screen could be split in two vertical panes, the left 
one with your new5 layout, the right one with an interactive help which would 
explain the differences between the different projections (withing 3 lines, 
that is), the size and stuff..

Another thing what I would really like (but maybe this is because I don't 
understand hugin) is to have a "precrop" function as there's usually a huge 
black part in my images as I don't get the "cross" in the preview centered. 
You should be able to more easily
-either manipulate the center of the cross (the one you see in the preview)
-set up a "crop" of the region that you want to have, so you can cut out the 
black parts, saving disk space and post-processing load times.

Tijmen

P.S. Sorry rob, this was meant to go to the list.