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<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">List,</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">Here are 12 suggestions to improve gvSIG's useability. I think these changes are fairly simple to make. (But I'm not a developer-yet, so I don't know.) Thank you developers for your time, talents, and efforts.</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">1. Eliminate the bouncing that occurs when toolbars are turned on and off. Currently, whenever a user clicks on views, tables, maps, or the project manager, toolbars appear or disappear. This re-sizes the toolbar area causing views, tables, and maps to shift up or down, making gvSIG very bouncy. Eliminating this will make using gvSIG smooth. Two possible solutions: have toolbars always visible and gray out when inactive, or make the toolbar area a constant size (height) sufficient to hold all the toolbars without re-sizing.</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">2. Make the views, tables, and maps ready to use when they are first created by having them larger and near the center. The views, tables, and maps are the working areas of gvSIG. They are the most important real estate; yet, currently they are they are small and in the upper left corner when created. They are important. Make them large and near the center upon creation. The best thing would be if the user could designate starting size and location of views, tables, and maps in the preferences. Perhaps it could be percentage sizes and locations based upon the overall size of gvSIG at the moment. If it is too much to create preference settings the next best option is to hard code larger sizes so that they are ready to use without re-sizing.</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">3. When gvSIG starts have a view open and the program immediately ready to add data. Currently a user has to create a view, open the view, then re-size and center the view before the program is ready to add data. The first thing a user wants to do after gvSIG starts is load data (or perhaps open an existing project). If the program started with a view opened and centered the user can immediately start working. The view can be in the default projection.</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">4. Have some visual space around a layer after using "zoom to layer". Currently, gvSIG zooms to the exact extent of a layer, causing the layer to touch the sides of the view. It would be nice if it zoomed to a slightly larger extent so that the view contained some visual space around the layer. It would be great if in the preferences the user could set a percentage extent size for the "zoom to layer".</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">5. Add "Show Attribute Table" and "Export to" to the right click menu of a layer. These are often used GIS tasks and many GIS users expect to have access to these options by right clicking on a layer in the TOC.</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">6. After adding an element to a map have the cursor automatically change to the "select by rectangle" arrow. Users want to immediately manipulate new map elements after they are added, so it would be wonderful if the cursor automatically changed to the "select by rectangle" cursor. Currently, the cursor remains the same and users rarely need to add the same type of element again.</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">7. Use the "select by point" arrow as the default cursor when a view is created or data is added to a view. Currently the default cursor is zoom. Users often inspect or "touch" new data layers after loading them. It is not desirable for the zoom to be the default cursor.</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">8. Fix the switched width and height error when setting a map size. Currently, when you set a map's width and height in Map - Page Setup the resulting map is the opposite of what you set. The width became the height. The height became the width.</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">9. Fix the measurement units in Map - Page Setup. Currently, when you custom size a map no matter which measurement units you select gvSIG considers the width and height as centimeters. This is bug 13229 with a low priority number of 1. To a user wanting to create a map of a specific size and not use centimeters this is a high priority bug. (OK, this one may not be a simple fix. But it is important to users.)</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">10. Have a much smaller command line area when editing mode is started. Many users do not use the command line for edits. They use the mouse and toolbar tools. Currently, the command line window covers much of the view area and the data. Of course, the best option would be if settings in the preferences could be set to control this. Then each user could set to his/her preference.</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">11. Have a view or map immediately open after it is created. This reduces to one the number of clicks needed to create and open a map or view. Currently, a user has to click on the new button to create a view or map, click on the view or map's name in the project manager to select it, then click on the open button to open the view or map. Users almost always want to open a newly created map or view. It would be great if one click on the new button creates <I>and </I>opens a new view or map.</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">12. Have the default names given to views and maps be "View" and "Map" instead of "Untitled". Also have them start with "1" instead of "0". So the default names of consecutively created views would be: "View - 1", "View - 2", "View - 3", etc. Consecutively created maps would be: "Map - 1", "Map - 2", "Map - 3", etc.</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">Kevin<BR></P>
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