Parts of .NET Runtime Editor awkward to use
It seems the geometry editing portions of the .NET Runtime SDK's Editor are not very well thought out, especially for touch or stylus use. Say we're editing a line:
The good:
- Blue squares for vertex movement
- White circles to add vertexes - very handy
The bad:
- None of the yellow boxes are useful and tend to get in the way
- No user will ever think the large blue box is for rotating the shape, and it is covered by a yellow box, rendering it very hard to use for all modes of input
- Moving the shape is possible, but really hard to do for a line. For, you have to grab the line precisely (and it is pixel perfect). If you concentrate, you can grab it with a stylus. Touch input is a no-go.
You can really see the first of these issues when the line is vertical or horizontal:
All of the yellow boxes are smashed together, the outer dashed-line box obscures the line, and the blue rotation square is further hidden by the top vertex square.
May I suggest that you guys do away with the dashed box and yellow squares entirely. They have no useful purpose that the vertex adjustments can't fulfill. If a "resize" tool is needed, separate it from the geometry's extent with a much more subtle box to indicate the kind of action the user is performing.
To fix the move action, I'd suggest copying from other geometry editing tools that are out there, by showing a separate tile to drag around that will move the whole graphic (from paint.net):
Dragging that little box with the arrows inside it drags the whole line around. A similar box could be floated to the side of the line to allow folks to rotate it.
If you guys could make these changes in Quartz, that would be great! It would make the tool much more useful.
