UI Suggestions

[Hoogo]

On the other hand I don't know a photographic word for levels in german.

I found one - "tonal range". At least PS calls it like that, but it sounds quite common to me.

Does Agfa still exist? (I haven't bought film or paper in an age)....

Afaik the production of cameras was stopped in the 80s. Around 2000 it was divided into some companys, the mother company Agfa Gevaert in Belgium, AgfaFoto for photographics and some more. AgfaFoto was on court against Gevaert, because of too little money after the split, no rights on the name Agfa and something like that. No acceptable investor for AgfaFoto was found, although the price was about 2 million. I think they won on court against Gevaert, but whoe cares.

Did they really? Were they offered an alternative?

Mixing the menus is always a topic As the menu-structure can be edited someone offers an alternative from time to time. Some suggestions are taken, some not. It usually means that the online-help has to be reorganized, too...

...(I can't find the Group/Ungroup thing this morning that I found yesterday, typical), then at least the "Picture" window should expand to show it...

Effects can also be applied to groups, maybe that's it?
I once had the idea that any layer could expand like a group and then show the channels, the effects, the "working layer job"... But after a while I did not like that idea anymore. It might be appealing because of its logic, but when you have a thousand layers in your document it would make usage much more complicated. You find a list of current effects, distortions and so on in the "attributes dialog".

...In PL32, you can adjust that in the Curves (dang, I was just getting used to CLUT) dialog...

LOL. I think that "curves" is a very meaningless name for what it does...

Ummm -- Microsoft Windows was derived from the Apple Macintosh interface and Apple derived its look and feel from a Xerox interface.

That does not matter Most Mac-Users come from Windows, and a Start-button to shut down the computer will make live more easy for them. And more restarts are also industry-standard these days

...600 dpi, or even 1200 dpi. In a DTP program, they DON'T all have to be reduced to the same, fixed resolution....

I thing I got it. Printing is not such a pixel-based system like pc-graphics, their resolutions are much bigger than usually needed. So it's not necessary to turn the document into the native dpi of the printer, less dpi will do fine. And then it depends on the kind of graphic, text or picture.

Thanks, Hoogo, I'll work with this! I still don't get the 50:50 but I'll keep looking for more information and trying to clarify it.

TUrn the mask-color in the options to a more intense black and try it on a white picture, that makes things more easy to understand. I'll make a screenshot soon.

[greenmorpher]

On the other hand I don't know a photographic word for levels in german.

I found one - "tonal range". At least PS calls it like that, but it sounds quite common to me.

That's it!!! Tonal range, range of tones. So with the middle slider in the Canvas Levels (aka PL32 Historgram) (BOTH should be Tonal Range) dialog allows you to shift tones up and down the range without changing the top and bottom of the range. You get the same kind of effect by moving the middle of the curve in Curves, whereas moving the ends of the curve in Curves is like moving the end things in the Levels/Histogram. Please don't tell me that is incorrect -- I might just cry ...

Mixing the menus is always a topic As the menu-structure can be edited someone offers an alternative from time to time. Some suggestions are taken, some not. It usually means that the online-help has to be reorganized, too...

What do you mean -- menus can be edited? You mean by the Hubers -- not by users. And, of course, the help/manual would have to be reorganized. As far as I am concerned, that is the least of the worries. The help/manual needs to be totally rewritten anyway.

...(I can't find the Group/Ungroup thing this morning that I found yesterday, typical), then at least the "Picture" window should expand to show it...

Effects can also be applied to groups, maybe that's it?[/quote]
That might be the answer. On the other hand, wherever it was, it made the shadow disappear.

Ah, I have worked it out. Layer > Management > Group Marked Layers.

I have concluded that what I did was -- Working in Document (should be page) view, I had used Effects > Effects Filters > Tear Paper and this created a group. THEN I applied Effects > Effects > Outside Shadow. When I went Layer > Management > Dissolve Group (should be Ungroup), the shadow disappeared because it had been applied to the GROUP, not to the image.

Replicating this, of course, leads one into a further attack of hysterics. This Tear Paper "filter" is actually applying vector masks to the picture -- new layers; three new layers for each side of a picture. Yes it is! None of several other tools/filters I tried in the Effects menu applies new layers, so far as I can see

The Tear Paper tool is horrendous to apply -- a different setting for each side of a document and the words to describe what you are setting simply don't make sense for me (actually, they should change with the context of the placement of the arrow. Apply with preview ON!!! Okay for a single side, provided you have preview on, but for more than one side, you can get the same effect more easily, I think, by using the freehand lasso or drawing a vector path then converting it to a selection path/lasso.

more restarts are also industry-standard these days

Actually, this is not true of OS X on Mac since it runs protected memory. That should be true of XP and Vista too; though personally I wouldn't touch Vista -- heaven knows what back doors it has in it for snoopers. For me, this stability is the one advantage of OS X over the original Mac OS. OS X does just about everything slower than the Mac OS did. And, of course, under OS X you can run "Earth Desk" as your wallpaper (works on Windows too). With a cable or DSL connection, it is definitely worth a look, by the way.

...600 dpi, or even 1200 dpi. In a DTP program, they DON'T all have to be reduced to the same, fixed resolution....

I thing I got it. Printing is not such a pixel-based system like pc-graphics, their resolutions are much bigger than usually needed. So it's not necessary to turn the document into the native dpi of the printer, less dpi will do fine. And then it depends on the kind of graphic, text or picture.

Yes, kind of. The paper is the paper -- it is supplied. My (black & white) printer, a Kyocera FP3800N, will print up to 1200x1200 dpi. The range of tones (there it is!) you can print depends on the resolution. The higher the resolution, the more tones. It also depends on the fineness of the paper surface -- the smoother and brighter (glossier) the paper surface, the more tones. Ordinary white office payer is both relatively rough surfaced, so it can't take full advantage of the 1200x1200. 300x300 dpi is generally good enough for it, with 600x600 dpi being as high as it needs go.

But continuous tone stuff such as photos is different from line stuff. So printing something which is fed to it as a line, e.g. type or a vector line, the printer will use all available resolution to smooth the edges. In addition, if you have stuff like type or a line drawing, which has been converted to image, then it needs to come out of the image program with the maximum resolution possible, also maximum contrast, to smooth out diagonal lines, curves, and so forth. Otherwise, even at 300 dpi, you get just slightly rough edges you eye can detect.

So you want to be able to set the resolution yourself for different elements in the page to take different requirements into account.[/quote]

[Hoogo]

...What do you mean -- menus can be edited? You mean by the Hubers -- not by users...

The whole menu-structure is stored in a textfile. I had a small description of its meanings somewhere. For "users-only" it might be not such a good idea to change the structures, as nobody else can tell afterwards where to find an entry.

...applying vector masks to the picture -- new layers; three new layers for each side of a picture. Yes it is! None of several other tools/filters I tried in the Effects menu applies new layers, so far as I can see

At least there is something like "Paint flashes", don't know the english translation. Creating layers has the advantage that you can move the teared parts by hand.

[podperson]

Microsoft Windows was derived from the Apple Macintosh interface and Apple derived its look and feel from a Xerox interface.

Ha, that old fallacy.

If you've ever used one of those Xerox systems (and I have) you'd know that Apple did NOT derive its look OR feel from the Xerox interface. They certainly stole some ideas, but the Mac user interface was stupendously better than the Xerox interface they "copied". Windows, on the other hand, was not only an obvious copy (down to API level, the names of menus, the design of icons) but a generally inferior one (Start > Shut Down indeed). But then Microsoft stole DOS as well...

In any event, all of this stuff (from the mouse to the GUI) was invented by Douglas Englebart and Ivan Sutherland back in the 60s.

Here's a pretty interesting diagram:
http://www.guidebookgallery.org/article ... /pics/fig8

Simula -- the first OO programming language (Alan Kay invented Smalltalk after trying to "debug" an Algol compiler which was actually a working Simula compiler)
Memex -- a hypothetical computer system described by Vannevar Bush (head of Sandia) in an article for Atlantic Monthly which supposedly inspired Douglas Englebart

[greenmorpher]

Be fair, Poddo -- Gates actually bought DOS, I read.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard, Business Writer & Publisher

"Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes" -- the secrets of how type can help you to sell or influence, now at the new low price of $29.95. See the book at http://www.worsleypress.com or Amazon.

[greenmorpher]

...applying vector masks to the picture -- new layers; three new layers for each side of a picture. Yes it is! None of several other tools/filters I tried in the Effects menu applies new layers, so far as I can see

At least there is something like "Paint flashes", don't know the english translation. Creating layers has the advantage that you can move the teared parts by hand.

I'm not saying that vector masks are banned, Hoogo, what I am questioning is them being labelled as a "filter". Inconsistency.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard, Business Writer & Publisher

"Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes" -- the secrets of how type can help you to sell or influence, now at the new low price of $29.95. See the book at http://www.worsleypress.com or Amazon.

[ono]

Hello I am Mac OS X user considering purchase Photoline. Unfortunately many strengths of Photoline are clouded by cluttered and ecstatically really bad looking UI, that makes me wonder if Photoline authors cannot afford for nice and clean UI, how this software can be any better for doing good designs.

Aside of Photoline icon which is simply "outstanding" when comparing to other design apps on mac, just have a look on few of them:


The biggest issue that makes me hard to convince myself to start using Photoline are toolbar icons, there are simply not readable, I wish to have them plain BW look without those extra shadows and colors and simple as in other apps, see Photoshop vs Photoline:


Photoline's toolbar icons are simply distracting, they are too colorful (like Chineese Windows drivers) and you don't really know what is what.

More complaints are why do you use SO SMALL fonts in the UI if there is plenty space around, see:

Notice the we could have normal size fonts in both panes, bo they are made smaller. Why?
I may only guess you did translate it from German, which might have longer words. But this is too bad, and it looks awkward and again distracting.

Altogether I find it very bizzare because reading reviews of Photoline dated 2007, 2008 I can see that biggest complaint was always cluttered unreadable UI, and time passes, you release new version with the same messy UI. Photoline seems to be really powerful piece of software for nice price, but for many of us designer, this UI burns our heart and produces elemental artistic sickness.

I promise, once you change those icons and revise layout including too small fonts, I am you client. Now I withhold the purchase and stay with other programs.

[Hoogo]

At least you can turn the icons into greyscale:
-Edit > Options
-Usage > Toolbars
-Select gray as display mode.

[ono]

At least you can turn the icons into greyscale:
-Edit > Options
-Usage > Toolbars
-Select gray as display mode.

Oh wow! Thanks! No wonder I didn't find this options, coz the Options menu is well bit unreadable to me. I would need to click all popup menus to find that option :


Another comparison to regular Mac app options like Littlesnapper I use to make screenshots:


Thanks, this Gray without shadow should be definitely DEFAULT on Mac!

[Stefan_E]

Aside of Photoline icon which is simply "outstanding" when comparing to other design apps on mac, just have a look on few of them:

Hi Ono,

a while ago, there was a thread in the German Betatest forum on icon design - I guess you'll get the hang of it by just looking at the embedded pics and the .zip file by Martin. At some point, Gerhard - one of the two creators of PL - conceded that apparently he doesn't have 'the eye' for icon design, which is fair enough: Who programs is not necessarily a good icon designer.

However, the forum members could not - at least until now - stem the challenge to come up with a complete and coherent icon set; however, I read elsewhere, you are into icon design (btw., there is apparently a hidden option someplace to change the icon size ...)

Stefan

[greenmorpher]

Hello Ono

I started a response and I lost it somehow!

That was when I went off to do something graphic about it.

The tool box -- I would like to see it made a bit wider and the tools made perhaps 30% larger. Also the palettes. Would all this clutter the screen? Yes, the palettes would have to be dockable so they could be put out of the way but kept handy to avoid that.

AND the toolbox would need to be rationalised a bit .

I've made some suggestions in the graphic below. The vector flyout is a guide; it's excellent. Add the vector line tool to it to complete it. Then make three more flyouts with the circled groups (or something similar if someone sees a better grouping of tools).

THEN make the flyouts into rip-off palettes and/or palettes that stick to the side of the toolbox so they don't cover parts of the toolbox and can be kept open while you are working on that kind of stuff -- much easier to use than flyouts that disappear the moment you select your tool to use for the moment.

The picture, by the way, is the $6 billion (!!!) Marina Bay Sands tourism development in Singapore, just opened. That swimming pool has an invisible side wall -- the water flows over the side into an invisible (from this point of view) gutter to be pumped back into the pool. Swim in that, a bazilliohn metres above the earth? Not me, mate -- I only go that high if its got wings!

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Amazon or http://www.worsleypress.com

[greenmorpher]

In my excitement I forgot to mention, Ono -- you are dead right about program icons. So many boring pages with a pen/pencil/whatever. PhotoLine's icon is excellent.

As for gray for the toolbox -- NOOOOO!!!!!!!!! Thank goodness it's an option (which I hadn't noticed before). I want colorful stuff. When I started on computers, we were on black and white screens, then we got grayscale, and finally, wonderof wonders, we got color. I find Apple's return to gray for so much of their interface as the most pathetic thing going. Just boring.

But that's personal taste, and the Hubers have done well to make it optional.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Amazon or www.worsleypress.com

[bkh]

The tool box -- I would like to see it made a bit wider and the tools made perhaps 30% larger.

You can already change this (in PL 16.00) - open the options panel where you set the icon colour, and use the drop box next to the icon colour to select medium sized icons. It's a bit hard to recognize, since the drop box is too small to be able read and recognize its contents

Cheers,

Burkhard.

[Hoogo]

"My" Web-Designer here at work told me that she thinks that PL's colorful icons look like 80's, and presents me how beautiful the grey icons in PS are. Maybe one must have lived in the 8Bit-times to appreciate colors, but Punk is not dead!

By the way:
Last night I remembered how mad my mother went when a cup was broken. It could not be replaced, how does it look when 5 persons use the same cups, but one uses a different...

[greenmorpher]

"My" Web-Designer here at work told me that she thinks that PL's colorful icons look like 80's, and presents me how beautiful the grey icons in PS are. Maybe one must have lived in the 8Bit-times to appreciate colors, but Punk is not dead!

Tell them you're going fully Gothic and force them to work on black and white monitors. That would show them!

Seriously, this gray on gray which Apple is doing is just ridiculous for good readability and easy to use interfacing. Putting black on a 10% gray on paper is immediately damaging to how easy it is to read. A lot of stuff that applies to the paper-based research in my book, "Type & Layout", is different on the web because the finished product is presented on screen but this business of background colors interfering with reading and seeing is one this that is the same whatever the medium.

Another one is size. Any web designer who sets up 10pt type or less on a website should have been strangled at birth in the old Roman manner (or was it Greek?) and those who put a percentage of the same color as background behind the type ought to have it down to them twice!!!

You have to wonder whether these people are smart enough to breathe without instructions.

By the way:
Last night I remembered how mad my mother went when a cup was broken. It could not be replaced, how does it look when 5 persons use the same cups, but one uses a different...

My mum too. I get around that for everyday use by buying cups and mugs from the Op Shop (Opportunity Shop = Thrift Store = used goods store, usually run for charity) so we have a rather catholic (or eclectic) collection.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Amazon or www.worsleypress.com