Re: Review of description for initial packaging: rgbpaint
It's good, but I've nonetheless ended up rewriting every line!
Mats Erik Andersson wrote:
> Package: rgbpaint
> Architecture: any
> Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}
> Description: simple, pixel based painting program
If we added a hyphen we'd hardly need the comma:
Description: simple pixel-based painting program
We're standardising in the general direction of en_US, which would
mean s/colour/color/, and preferably only one space between
sentences. That wouldn't have been enough to justify surgery if I
wasn't already rewriting things.
> Rgbpaint is a simplified painting program, derived from its
> ancestor Mtpaint by the very same authors. It edits and saves
> images of the formats PNG, JPEG, and ICO only. Some additional
> formats can be read, though: TIFF, GIF, TGA, PCX, and SVG.
Upstream apparently call them "rgbPaint" and "mtPaint" (annoying to
start a paragraph with). "Derived from its ancestor" seems
redundant, and I've also sorted that list of formats:
This package provides the simplified painting program rgbPaint,
successor to mtPaint by the same authors. Light on dependencies, it
can edit and save images in ICO, JPEG, or PNG format only, though
it can also read GIF, PCX, SVG, TGA, and TIFF formats.
(Dependencies selling point promoted from lower down.)
> .
> Rgbpaint has by intention a simplified user interface without
> drop down menus. Painting is done using one out of ten brushes,
> and the palette is made up of twenty colours. Each of these
> colours may be replaced and mixed anew in a colour blender.
Is it really necessary to point out that brushes are used for
painting, and that only one brush is used at a time? Is it
compulsory to "mix anew" the replaced colour? I'd like to simplify
this down to:
The user interface is intentionally simple, without drop-down
menus. Ten brushes are provided, and a palette of twenty colors,
each of which can be replaced from a color blender.
> .
> Painting, filling, and area selection are the available actions.
> The program can make a screen snapshot immediately when starting.
That's an odd way to put it (answering the question "what are
painting, filling, and area selection?" instead of the question
"what can I do?"). And it's not obvious to me why I'd want a
snapshot of a GTK window getting opened... can it not do snapshots
*after* I've drawn something? Or is the idea that it takes a
snapshot before opening and then lets you edit that?
The available actions are painting, filling, and area selection.
The program can also produce screen snapshots during launch.
(Also, merge this paragraph with the previous one on the same
general topic.)
> .
> Rgbpaint was originally aimed at the OLPC initiative, and it
> works well with the Sugar desktop environment. Like its larger
> relative, Mtpaint, a tablet is a true enhancement to Rgbpaint,
> and as such it is quickly mastered also by younger children,
> using true brushwork!
There doesn't seem to be any particular reason to mention mtPaint
here... and something goes slightly wrong when you do (a tablet has
Mtpaint as its larger relative?), making the "as such" a bit hard to
follow (do the children master rgbPaint or the tablet?)...
Originally aimed at the OLPC initiative, rgbPaint works well with the
Sugar desktop environment - especially with a graphics tablet; even
young children can quickly master it to produce true brushwork!
> .
> Rgbpaint needs GTK+2, but the use of GtkPixbuf facilities reduces
> explicit dependency on image handling libraries.
This is an issue for the Depends: line, not the description (and
besides, it's an anticlimax after that exclamation mark). I've
boiled it down to a general "light on dependencies" and merged it
into the first paragraph.
--
JBR with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package
--- control.old 2010-11-17 11:32:16.000000000 +0000
+++ control 2010-11-17 11:35:11.000000000 +0000
@@ -12,25 +12,18 @@
Package: rgbpaint
Architecture: any
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}
-Description: simple, pixel based painting program
- Rgbpaint is a simplified painting program, derived from its
- ancestor Mtpaint by the very same authors. It edits and saves
- images of the formats PNG, JPEG, and ICO only. Some additional
- formats can be read, though: TIFF, GIF, TGA, PCX, and SVG.
+Description: simple pixel-based painting program
+ This package provides the simplified painting program rgbPaint,
+ successor to mtPaint by the same authors. Light on dependencies, it
+ can edit and save images in ICO, JPEG, or PNG format only, though
+ it can also read GIF, PCX, SVG, TGA, and TIFF formats.
.
- Rgbpaint has by intention a simplified user interface without
- drop down menus. Painting is done using one out of ten brushes,
- and the palette is made up of twenty colours. Each of these
- colours may be replaced and mixed anew in a colour blender.
+ The user interface is intentionally simple, without drop-down
+ menus. Ten brushes are provided, and a palette of twenty colors,
+ each of which can be replaced from a color blender. The available
+ actions are painting, filling, and area selection. The program can
+ also produce screen snapshots during launch.
.
- Painting, filling, and area selection are the available actions.
- The program can make a screen snapshot immediately when starting.
- .
- Rgbpaint was originally aimed at the OLPC initiative, and it
- works well with the Sugar desktop environment. Like its larger
- relative, Mtpaint, a tablet is a true enhancement to Rgbpaint,
- and as such it is quickly mastered also by younger children,
- using true brushwork!
- .
- Rgbpaint needs GTK+2, but the use of GtkPixbuf facilities reduces
- explicit dependency on image handling libraries.
+ Originally aimed at the OLPC initiative, rgbPaint works well with
+ the Sugar desktop environment - especially with a graphics tablet;
+ even young children can quickly master it to produce true brushwork!
Source: rgbpaint
Section: graphics
Priority: optional
Maintainer: Mats Erik Andersson <mats.andersson@gisladisker.se>
Build-depends: debhelper (>= 7.0.50~), gettext, pkg-config,
libx11-dev, libglib2.0-dev, libgtk2.0-dev, libpango1.0-dev
Standards-Version: 3.9.1
Homepage: http://mtpaint.sourceforge.net/rgbpaint.html
Vcs-Svn: svn://svn.debian.org/svn/collab-maint/deb-maint/rgbpaint/trunk/
Vcs-Browser: http://svn.debian.org/viewsvn/collab-maint/deb-maint/rgbpaint/trunk/
Package: rgbpaint
Architecture: any
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}
Description: simple pixel-based painting program
This package provides the simplified painting program rgbPaint,
successor to mtPaint by the same authors. Light on dependencies, it
can edit and save images in ICO, JPEG, or PNG format only, though
it can also read GIF, PCX, SVG, TGA, and TIFF formats.
.
The user interface is intentionally simple, without drop-down
menus. Ten brushes are provided, and a palette of twenty colors,
each of which can be replaced from a color blender. The available
actions are painting, filling, and area selection. The program can
also produce screen snapshots during launch.
.
Originally aimed at the OLPC initiative, rgbPaint works well with
the Sugar desktop environment - especially with a graphics tablet;
even young children can quickly master it to produce true brushwork!
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