manual ctrl point creation (was: Re: [ptx] Re: Renewing OSX Distribution)

[JD Smith]

On Sat, 2006-08-12 at 17:34 +0200, Pablo d'Angelo wrote:
> JD Smith wrote:
> 
> > Auto Add and all that stuff should probably be cleaned up too... it's
> > way too many options, all of which relate to just manual control point
> > addition.  It simply means the control point gets added as soon as
> > defined, rather than having to click the "Add" button.  
> > 
> > We could do away with auto add altogether by keeping track of which
> > control point pair is active, highlighting it, and allowing the user to
> > "abort" by hitting delete.  There's no reason to maintain a distinction
> > between "control points which are final and included on my list for
> > good" and the point actively being edited.
> 
> Actually there is a reason. Some people prefer to select the control point
> (especially if only a handful are needed) in zoom-out mode. Then the "not
> yet" added state will stay in 100% zoom, so that people can check if the
> matching produced a good control point.

Right, but my point is that "not yet added" and "easily removed" are (if
implemented correctly) entirely equivalent, so that if all points are
automatically added, independent of the zoom-in/zoom-out, etc. modes,
but the latest point is left "active" until something is done to create
a *new* point, a simple delete can remove it.  This I think would
present a much easier to understand interface to the new user, with
fewer options to puzzle over.  The zoom-out person could click,
(auto-)zoom to 100%, nudge the position if they got it close, and if
they don't like what they see, hit delete.  Things like this could cut
down on interface clutter and make Hugin a bit more approachable.  

That said, the biggest interface issue, in my opinion, is to get the
column list widgets to behave.  On both Linux and OSX, the columns start
too small, they don't resize to fill the full space available, and the
text in the column headers is often cut off at the bottom.  These may
all be wxWidgets deficiencies, but if the widget layout issues could get
dealt with, this would improve the "first glance" interface impression
by about 2x.

Thanks,

JD