Text toolbar rewrite

The text toolbar has become a monstrosity. This page is for discussing how to rework the toolbar into something more usable.

Issues

• Text toolbar shows too many options.
• Line height control is confusing.

Ideas

• Utilize "hamburger" menus to hide less used options:
  • Either: Put all "overflow" options in one big menu.
  • Or: Put options in to several menus
    • Glyph tweaking (rotating, etc.). (Maybe not convenient.)
    • Writing modes (vertical/horzontal, right-to-left, etc.). (These are usually set once and then forgotten.)
• Move some of the options to mini-dialogs.
  • This could be useful, for example, where you want the controls readily available (like the glyph positioning ones).
  • Mini-dialogs allow more text to explain what is happening.
  • Should work well when we move to the tabbed dialog framework.
• Set a default line spacing option, require user to use hamburger menu (or mini-dialog) to change option.
  • Which option should be the default?

Mock-ups

Line spacing

Line spacing is complicated:

• The minimum line-height is set by the 'font-size' and 'line-height' properties on the text element.
• 'line-height' and/or 'font-size' can be set on any tspan element.
• 'line-height' % values and pure numeric values have different meanings:
  • %: 'line-height' computed values are determined by the element where the 'line-height' property is set. Once set, the computed value is inherited by all child elements.
  • Number: 'line-height' computed value is determined anew for each child element using the child element's font-size and line-height values (which can be inherited).

Inkscape has four options for determining 'line-height' behavior. Three of the options enforce certain rules:

1. Adaptive: 'line-height' is set to zero on a text element, this allows the computed line-height to be any value in child elements.
2. Minimum: 'line-height' value is set to some non-zero value on text element. This sets a minimum line-height computed value. Line spacing can be larger but not smaller.
3. Even: 'line-height' value is set on the text element. The computed line-height value is fixed, regardless of font-size in child elements (provided line-height unit is not '%', 'em', or 'ex').
4. Adjustable: Inkscape enforces no restrictions on 'line-height' and 'font-size' values. The user must fully understand how 'line-height' and 'font-size' interact with inheritance.

This proposal suggests making the selection behavior for font-size and line-height work like it does for all other properties:

• If there is no selection (just a blinking cursor), font-size and line-height entries apply to the entire text.
• If there is a selection (some text high-lighted), font-size and line-height entries apply to only the selection.

The toolbar would be altered as follows:

• The "Outer/Inner" button will be removed.
• The "Line Spacing" menu will be replaced by a hamburger button that opens a dialog which will display the outer (paragraph) values for font-size and line-height, along with some text that changes depending on which method is selected.

Text direction