How about Remove(hide) single line and enable multiline option by default?
I don’t see any reason to hide it. Also I don’t see any reason why one person must prefer always multi line in opposition to single line. Single line is quicker to edit (click on canvas, type and press intro).
-G
I am not quite familiar with the text tool. Recently I am trying to improve UI of various dialogs for the Synfig Studio and it was the first time I noticed there is a multiline option available. Before that, I never know Text Tool is capable to input multiline text. When I want to have multiline text, I was always to create a single line text layer with text tool and then call Multiline Editor by clicking Text parameter on Parameter Panel.
I was thinking since Multiline Editor and handle both Single Line and Multiline Text, so why can’t we unify it, and let user can get it at the first sign. The negative is as you mentioned we can just hit enter to finish the input.
So a possible solution is to move the “Multiline Editor” option from tool option panel to Text Input Dialog, and turn off by default.
Of cause, the best solution is to recode the text layer and tool to gain the ability of Text input on canvas as on Gimp or Inkscape, it would take much long time…
Please correct me if I am wrong on this.
But what’s the problem with the option for “multi line editor” at the tool options panel? Is it hard to find for the user? If so, make it (the panel) more visible (close to the toolbox as in Gimp) to the user and then the amount of mouse clicks and mouse movements would be smaller.
I’m thinking on ergonomics here:
When user wants a text he does this:
a) Move the mouse and click the Text tool (alternatively uses its shortcut)
b) Then move the mouse and click where on the position to get the text placed.
c) Then types the text
d) Now he realizes that he needs a multi line version so grab the mouse and click the multi line option.
e) Then he presses the ‘intro’ key and continue typing.
f) Finally he decides that the text is ok and grab the mouse again and click on OK to create the text layer.
Above is a joke… I’m just showing that to correctly take the decision on where to put the widgets that are helpers on the user interaction, some sort of ergonomics study has to be done first, to at last, try to take the decision based on a probable user workflow.
I think you better concentrate on windows layout rather than scratch your head on small refinements like that. ^___^
Please don’t misunderstand me. I just want to guide you to balance between have fun and be efficient during your contribution to code.
-G
Some more discussions happened in Gtalk, I post here to track just for future development.
Jcome: It is weird at the first sign: multiple and single line text handling is separated to two dialog windows. In another word, it is not intuitive. Comparing to other software.
18:36
Genete: The only difference should be the response to the key stroke ‘intro’ or not.
In fact if you press ‘TAB’ and then ‘Intro’ it should work fine for multi or single line
18:37
TAB should focus to the OK button (according to the tab order of the widgets)
18:39
but I think that we shouldn’t use our neurons on that at the moment. IMHO on this moment, you do more productive things on arranging docks than refining dialogs but I understand that you need some spare time changing the focus of coding from time to time 
Jcome: And once you recall the text input dialog, if you want to modify text you input, you can not hit enter key as the first time you created it. Since it will always popup the multiline editor. That is another reason for my post in forums .
18:44
Yes, don’t worry about it, it is worth to do, I need to figure out more how studio works and learn the necessary coding knowledge . This kind of task is good for me, but your guide as on text tool is important as well, otherwise, I might wast my time on some difficulty things like it.
Genete: should it recall the input dialog that respond to the current status of multiline parameter?
18:46
oh, there is not multi-single line parameter!
so the text layers are always multiline in fact