UI Suggestions

[greenmorpher]

Hey Ono

I just had a thought about your pciture. A Pole cat?

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

[ono]

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.

I have nasty feeling that you are keen more into Windows windows UI, but you keep using Mac. Pretty weird seeing you defending Photoline UI and its icon, while complaining on rest of Mac OS X UI!? This is something in opposite in all Mac reviewers reviews and my personal feeling. And please note I did quote "outstanding" in my previous post, because straight unquoted I find Photolines just boring. Icon should represent the functionality of the program, so yes most Mac painting programs do have brush, some sheet and palette in the icon, and this is what I expect.

As for me I've switched to Mac few years ago just for the interface, since it is plain, simple and beautiful, and main constraint is that ALL applications are supposed to have same Look&Feel and most of them follow Apple Human Interface Guidelines. Since I am developer I has to know HIG quite well, and all I can say Photoline does not follow HIG. So with all respect, if you have read HIG and you don't agree with it I would say OSX it not for you

And once again why Photoline is against HIG:
* toolbar icons are not sharp at their small size, they are distracting you from your work, and you don't really know what they are about just looking at them
* some toolbar icons are simply not visible at all like Layers Pane, Settings/Action (Gear) icon it is GRAY on GRAY
* the layout of panes is simply "amazing" (read it WRONG), in most of them half bottom space is totally empty, and all controls are squished in top left corner !?
* Photoline OVERUSES mini font! even there's plenty space around most of Pane controls have mini fonts after many years woking with computers I learned to care of my eyes, and I can say those such fonts soon will make me blind

Finally I did few mockups how I'd expect Photoline layout to look like:
should be

should be

I didn't filled all the icons and so, because it would take too much time. But what is most important:
* all Pane fonts are same size (this is Small setting in Interface Builder)
* all Pane space is evenly occupied
* icons are mono, sharp and readable, and for the sake of readiblity, if it is Layers Pane you don't need to use Rectangle (representing layer) in each icon, anyway we deal only with layers here, so simple "+", "x2" are enough and more readable
* there's always some space around controls for readibility, so they don't glue to window edges

As you can notice I didn't change window sizes.

[laienspieler]

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!!!

How about this example from worsleypress.com?

[OldRadioGuy]

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

For the PL newbies among us, this option is accessed from the Edit menu:

Edit>Options>Usage>Toolbars>

That opens a dialog window that includes several Display Mode Options: Color, Gray, Color with Shadow, Gray with Shadow. Just to the right of that control is a button with three size options: Small, Middle, Large.

This should be enough to satisfy most everyone's readability tastes.

This specific issue is not addressed in the Help files or manual, underscoring the need for a thorough rewrite of Help/Manual.

Bob

[akeller]

*

[greenmorpher]

Hiya ono

You are entitled to your opinions, of course, but let me make a few points.

I have nasty feeling that you are keen more into Windows windows UI, but you keep using Mac. Pretty weird seeing you defending Photoline UI and its icon, while complaining on rest of Mac OS X UI!? This is something in opposite in all Mac reviewers reviews and my personal feeling. ... Icon should represent the functionality of the program, so yes most Mac painting programs do have brush, some sheet and palette in the icon, and this is what I expect.

APPLE'S GUI

I've been on Macs since the beginning of Macs, ono. I'm talking beige, all-in-one machine, b&w 9" screen, 128K/512K RAM, single 400KB floppy drive. I've never used Windows except when I've been forced to at internet cafes or occasionally for word processing at client sites. I find Windows, generally, clunky, but I am not falling into the trap of thinking Apple's current GUI is perfect. It is not. It is trendy in a particular way. It is not best practice. It will change. On the one hand, it's use of black/gray on gray is simply awful for distinguishing stuff and reading it (that's a research result, not opinion), and it does not make enough use of color to help distinguish between different things (why do we have color vision and not gray scale like dogs ... or was it horses?). On the other hand, it has childish games-like stuff, such as the animation effect in the dock. Thank goodness I can turn it off.

While Apple was using up valuable staff time to develop (and our computer power to run) this puerile animation rubbish, it has never developed a decent font menu manager. Never ever! Why not? I don't know -- it's a tool every DTPer (which is what I am in part) absolutely needs and it fits in with Apple's stated purposes for Macs from the beginning! It's possible to do it in OS X easily and cheaply, there was a haxie called Fontcard by Unsanity software which gave great menus and management up to X.4.x in both Cocoa and Carbon programs, but unfortunately it dropped off with the switch to X.5.x. It cost only $17 so clearly Apple could have developed something like it and incorporated it into the OS at very low cost. It used some color. Excellent. Gone now, presumably because Apple violated its own rules for OS X.

Have you seen Pixelmator's interface? It is color on black. Butt ugly! Apple recommends the program. I couldn't imagine working in it for an hour, let alone a day. If Apple's interface ever gets to look like that, I will be off and away in a flash. The Apple GUI revolution was to switch from a black background window to a white one.

butt ugly.jpg

PHOTOLINE'S PROGRAM ICON

I do like PhotoLine's program icon -- it is distinctive so it stands out with its shape and color in my dock. When I want to launch PhotoLine, I can hone in on it at a glance -- I don't have to look as second time to get it's tiny detail to try to pick it out from a bunch of similar, unimaginative, representational icons.

Key factors in all icon and logo development are that they should be unique, not easily confused with others, and are still distinguishable at a glance at very small size. Representational? Yes, but not literally. By your criteria (all graphics programs should be page and brush/pen/pencil), every bank would have to have a logo showing money.

For me, PhotoLine's icon meets the criteria and with the three little blobs and the color bar (representing RGB and CMYK, I presume) it indicates it is a graphics program of some range. Not an amateur affair.

PHOTOLINE'S GUI

I didn't defend PhotoLine's UI except for the use of color in the tool box -- I suggest you read my post again. I've already dealt with color -- I think not using it when color is so fundamental to our visual system is crazy. I can make you "read" the word "green" as "red" by changing the color of the type. A very common, basic study in perception psychology using a tachistoscope or comparable flash technology.

Apart from anything else, in the tool box, there are tools that deal with color directly (e.g. brushes, the eye dropper) or are normally colored in their concrete form (e.g. pen, pencil, eraser) or their normal/usual form on screen (e.g. selection marquees, gradients). Shape and color are their distinguishing features. Give them both, I say.

I agree with you on making better use of the space in the Panes/Palettes and improving them generally. I've talked about that before, probably in this thread. Again, Apple's implementation of them is not necessarily the best in the world but it is certainly better than PhotoLine's so it will do.

On the other hand, PhotoLine is a port of a Windows program; I presume its Windows sales far outstrip Mac sales, so I'm not surprised that PL's GUI doesn't match Mac standards perfectly.

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

[Koyaanis]

Cool deal on that small, middle, large option being added in v16. Now if only it would actually DO something in the windows version. Though I quite like the icon sizing options in Agent newsreader, where you select a percentage (like a zoom feature in 1% increments).

As for changing icons, long ago this was discussed and they can ALL be edited by opening the "pictures.pld" file in your PhotoLine\hlp\ folder.

Here's a copy of a little txt reference file I keep:

"You can setup an icon for the plugins for every function in
PL32. To do this, load the "Pictures.pld" file in your hlp
folder. Here you can find all predefined icons. If you want to
create icons for plugins you can insert it here and setup the
layer name to 9000 for the first, 9001 for the next and so on."

The problem with this is if you add another plugin, then all your previous icon associations are lost. Quite infuriating, and useless. There really should be a simple built-in function in PhotoLine to do this, like it exists in Paint Shop Pro, where you just select any icon file you want to apply it to any tool that you want. Effectively rebuilding that "pictures.pld" file on-the-fly.

I have so many customized toolbars that I just let PhotoLine default to that obnoxious crossed-out smiley-face icon and depend on the hover-over popups to tell me what each one is for now. Annoying, to say the least. And about 2/3rds of my toolbars are nothing but annoying looking crossed-out smiley-faces. But less annoying than spending days redefining all the layers in that "pictures.pld" file then something changes and they are all useless again.

[bkh]

Cool deal on that small, middle, large option being added in v16. Now if only it would actually DO something in the windows version. Though I quite like the icon sizing options in Agent newsreader, where you select a percentage (like a zoom feature in 1% increments).

I think you have to quit and re-start PL to see the new icon sizes. Works that way on the Mac, at least.

Burkhard.

[Koyaanis]

Thanks, that seems to work (reloading PL). Contrary to all other software I've ever used where the "apply" button does it NOW.

I was hoping that I was defaulting to medium, but when I chose "medium" that was way too large. And small is not small is not small enough. I have limited desktop resolution to play with. The smaller I can make toolbar icons and keep them recognizable and allow more real-estate for my editing area, the better.

I guess I'll just have to make-do with the "small" option, as I always have.

[akeller]

*

[OldRadioGuy]

As for changing icons, long ago this was discussed and they can ALL be edited by opening the "pictures.pld" file in your PhotoLine\hlp\ folder.

...

The problem with this is if you add another plugin, then all your previous icon associations are lost. Quite infuriating, and useless. There really should be a simple built-in function in PhotoLine to do this, like it exists in Paint Shop Pro, where you just select any icon file you want to apply it to any tool that you want. Effectively rebuilding that "pictures.pld" file on-the-fly.

Another roadblock to adding icons is the lack of documentation. Is there a previous English post on this board explaining the significance of the numbers assigned to each icon layer in "pictures.pld"? For example, is a specific number assigned to the function "crop"? What about numbers for those functions that have the generic (and after much use) ugly icon with the X assigned? Are any new icons added to "pictures.pld" supposed to begin at a specific position on the layer? Should they be restricted to a certain size?

While snooping around in the hlp folder of PL 16, I found another picture file, "pictures2.pld". This file has 14 icons, numbered 1000 to 1013. They are larger in size than the icons in "pictures.pld" and range in size from 60x128 px to 128x129 px. One appears to be a larger version of the yellow daisy used in the "pictures.pld" file, but the others are unique and don't show up in any of the customization options that I found. What's the function of this file?

Bob

[Koyaanis]

Hi Koyaanis,
There is another way to change the size of the icons. <snipped to save space>
Andreas

SWEET! Thanks! (doing a little happy-dance)

I set them for a width of 20 (14), and they went to about half-size from "small".

The only problem I have now is that the "_" and "X" (minimize & close) buttons on almost all of the toolbars don't also downsize, leaving them at their full width that they have for the "small" setting. But the ones on the "Custom Bar", those "_" and "X" buttons DO go down to smaller sizes and the toolbar width adjust accordingly (how it *should* work on them all). Odd behavior. But at least now I can see some of the icons on my customized toolbars that dropped off down below the bottom border! (long vertical toolbars on the left side from too many buttons added, I just lived with it.)

THANKS!

(This should have been such a simple thing to add to the options setup.)

Uh oh ... major problem, the buttons for my Show, Edit, Use, Hide/Show Lasso ... Mask buttons are now missing 2 of the 4. Major bummer. I use those ALL the time.

Ah well .... back to the old settings I guess. (crap)

SO close to what I needed too. There's just too many bugs in downsizing them this way.

[Koyaanis]

Another roadblock to adding icons is the lack of documentation. Is there a previous English post on this board explaining the significance of the numbers assigned to each icon layer in "pictures.pld"? For example, is a specific number assigned to the function "crop"?

I don't recall any detailed post describing the associated numbers. Editing things like this in PhotoLine have always been a huge guessing-game on my end of things. Going on scant hints provided in forum posts or just digging around in the files themselves. Good software shouldn't have you jumping through hoops like this to change such simple things. (I have a love/hate relationship with PhotoLine. But it's still my preferred editor. It's like trying to work with a misbehaving virtuoso brat at times. )

What's the function of this file?
Bob

When you figure it out, let us know.

[bkh]

Another roadblock to adding icons is the lack of documentation. Is there a previous English post on this board explaining the significance of the numbers assigned to each icon layer in "pictures.pld"? For example, is a specific number assigned to the function "crop"?
What about numbers for those functions that have the generic (and after much use) ugly icon with the X assigned?

Each Photoline command has a unique number. If there is no layer in pictures.pld with that number, the generic X icon is used. You can find these numbers in the files "MenuStructure.txt" or "Strings.str" in the Photoline resources. (In the Mac version, select PL in the Finder, then choose "Show Package contents" from the context menu. Open Contents, then Resources to find MenuStructure.txt. Strings.str is in the English.lproj subfolder.)

For instance, in Strings.str, you'll find the line

"12425" = "Crop image to the size of the lasso (Ctrl: merged)\nCrop"; //IDS_MSG_LASSOCUT

and MenuStructure.txt contains the line

12425, // Crop/Beschneiden

both meaning that the number associated with "Crop" is 12425.

Are any new icons added to "pictures.pld" supposed to begin at a specific position on the layer? Should they be restricted to a certain size?

It's probably best to follow the examples in pictures.pld … the document size is 19 x 18 px, and they usually have at least 2 px of margin on each side.

While snooping around in the hlp folder of PL 16, I found another picture file, "pictures2.pld". This file has 14 icons, numbered 1000 to 1013. They are larger in size than the icons in "pictures.pld" and range in size from 60x128 px to 128x129 px. One appears to be a larger version of the yellow daisy used in the "pictures.pld" file, but the others are unique and don't show up in any of the customization options that I found. What's the function of this file?

Some of these pictures are used as sample pictures in the PL gallery. In any case, I don't think that this file contains icons.

I recall that the PL developers once explicitly asked for user contributed icons for functions that don't have real icons yet (those with the X icons), but I can't find the post right now.

Cheers,

Burkhard.

[OldRadioGuy]

Each Photoline command has a unique number. If there is no layer in pictures.pld with that number, the generic X icon is used. You can find these numbers in the files "MenuStructure.txt" or "Strings.str" in the Photoline resources. (In the Mac version, select PL in the Finder, then choose "Show Package contents" from the context menu. Open Contents, then Resources to find MenuStructure.txt. Strings.str is in the English.lproj subfolder.)

Thanks, Burkhard. This and the other answers you provided are extremely helpful.

Bob