Hello. First of all congratulations for making Denemo, gtk wysiwyg partition editor are rare and denemo is the more complete I've seen. I wish Gnome had a reference partition editor, and denemo has the potential to be this, but I've noticed some defects.
I think the main denemo defect is its unfriendly and non-intuitive interface. I don't know the Gnome Human Interface Guidelines by heart, by I could notice several ergonomic aberrations, like:
Detachable menus (if you have to see permanently the content of a menu, then the content belong to a tool bar) and floating toolbars (Articulation).
The "title" button being the only button on its line. Does "create snippet" and "delete snippet" deserve a whole line too ?
The overcrowded preference panels.
The unfixed "tempo" and "volume" sliders lenght.
Text in buttons where it can be expressive icons (For example Loop).
Shortcuts are not aligned on the right in menus, and they are blue.
Tiny buttons ( like # ), it's hard to click on it !
Why distinguishing notes from rests ? You could divide the number of buttons with "duration" buttons plus one to toggle rest and note mode. Why is there two note bars ("notes and rest entry" and "Title, button, etc") instead of one ?
I'm sure there are reason behind all those points, but they shocked me at first sight. I made an approximately drawing of how I wish denemo could be.
Here, everything that is often used is displayed on the top tool bars, everything that is occasionally used is displayed on the right tool bars. Menu and hidden windows are strictly reserved for rarely used stuffs. Everything that can be illustrated have an icon.
There are interesting UI ideas in other programs. Gimp (2.8) and Inkscape for instance manage well the large number of tools. Noteworthy is very clean for instance.
Also I think denemo should be translated in order to be used by more people. (More people gets more bug reports :) ). And maybe denemo should get a stronger graphical identity (for instance, the icon look like a 90's program icon :).
I hope my critical are constructive and give you some ideas about design. Also if my English is not clear, don't hesitate to make me explain a point.
