[openbeos] Re: ShowImage "Mirror" Operations

On 4/21/06, Joachim Seemer <j.seemer@xxxxxx> wrote:
>
> I'm also easily confused with mirroring vertically and horizontally. I
> pretty much have given up on figuring it out and just try first one, then,
> when discovering it was the wrong direction, choose the other... :)

I hope the new names "Flip Sideways" and "Flip Upside Down" will
alleviate this problem for you.

> Why not leave it at that: Have just one menu item "Mirror" and mirror
> horizontally, and if the function is invoked once more (meaning the user
> actually wanted "the other mirror"), go back to the original and mirror
> vertically instead. If the "Mirror" command is evoked a third time, the
> original image comes up again.

Such an interface is even more confusing than having bad names for the
operations. It is generally bad form for a menu item's purpose to be
changed based on previous actions, especially when those actions may
not be obvious.

> Since these operations may become computationally intensive with large data,
> the app mustn't block while mirroring. Maybe even a rastered preview could
> be computed first so you instantly see if you got the right mirror.

Again proper names should be helpful in this and alleviate the need
for a preview. Also I feel having these operations block in an app
like ShowImage is acceptable since what else would you do while the
image was being flipped? In fact I doubt any image editor would allow
you to continue to work on an image while the program was changing it
right underneath you!

> Maybe this should be embraced for the 90° rotation as well.

For anyone with a simple geometry background the rotation operations
should be pretty clear. Though I do think all these would benefit from
having icons in the menus to give a visual indication of the operation
being performed, but that is an R2 feature.

> ...Or you think I'm completely insane... :)

Not insane but maybe a bit misguided ;)

Regards,
Ryan

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