UI Suggestions

[ono]

welcome to the forum, it is always good to have some new and active members here.

Thanks. This is what I try first when focusing on particular software. Taking a peek into the community forums is a good test what are tendencies regarding the software future and overall communication level with the developers.

Unfortunately it seems that the developers (authors) are NOT taking a part of the discussion, which is really shame, and it only shows that THEY DON'T want to listen which is another factor against buying Photoline for any potential users.

The discussion about the UI Style is an ongoing discussion since long time. There was also an external forum which tried to create new icons. Two examples, the first one from Martin, the second from me:

50_WK-16_02.png

Vektorwerkzeuge_grau_V3_klein.png

Unfortunately the developers of PL were not interested (no feedback) and the project died after some month. Meanwhile I can accept the style, even I think it is a barrier for potential new users of this great SW. But it is really not up to me to think about marketing concept of a company I don't belong to.

IMHO the first set really looks great and Pro.

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.

Sorry, I didn't want to be offensive, but I feel I was a little. Also I want to emphasize I am using Macs since a long time (my father worked in DTP for a while long time ago when I was teenager), it is just few years ago when Mac is my primary platform. Also I understand and partially agree with your charges against recent OSX UI. I do turn off all the animations and eye-catchers too, and not really use all the CoverFlow stuff and etc. One thing that I don't really agree is what you call "gray-on-gray". The main purpose of gray-on-gray is to make control UI such as toolbars tabs less visible and distractive than the content you are working on. And this is too a reason Photoshop has grayish icons. Still all Apple gray-on-gray UIs keep to be sharp and clear (even with this low contrast), while my accusation to Photoline is even the icons are colorful (having higher contrast ratio) they are terrible blurry and badly designed.

(...) 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 tried: http://bohemiancoding.com/fontcase/

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.

In fact I own this program. I know it is over-advertised. Its functionality it pretty limited, UI is eye-candy and very gallows with this black color too, but even that IMHO it looks far better that ugly-fuzzy icons and cluttered panes of Photoline.

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.

Please read Mac OS X HIG. The icon in fact should associate itself with and resemble somehow program functionality. It doesn't need to done straight, it can be some metaphor. In case of Photoline I don't see any of that.

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.

For me it meets criteria for soap bubble maker

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.

Okay, having an option to turn on/off toolbox icon colors and turn on/off shadows fixes partially the issue. Since I do prefer mono icons there, you prefer colors. Aside of that the main issue to me is that those icons are blurry, unreadable and looking like some homemade software from 90ties.

I think Photoline can afford better icons.

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.

And this is a bottom of the matter, and thing I feel most terrible with when working with Photoline. The panes layout and those extra tiny fonts are really nightmare, and the work "clutter" showing up in every review of Photoline is just about that. I already did write a lot about that, but I will say it again, it is amazing that time goes on and the developers did absolutely nothing to sort that out.

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.

Hehe, nice try, but IMHO this cannot defend messy panes layout which is same "clutter" on Windows, and fuzzy-ugly icons that are same on Windows too. I do agree that probably Windows sales outstrip far Mac sales, and I think I know the reason.
Mac users want to use good looking well designed programs, while many Windows users simply don't care.

P.S. Regarding my avatar. It is my cat fed into Photobooth iPhone program, which is pure fun.

[greenmorpher]

Hiya Ono.

Regarding the PL icon, you see bubbles, I see a nice metaphor. We won't meet on that one. Regarding Mac OS X HIG -- I don't care! They don't know the meaning of the word "metaphor". When Apple tries for a metaphor itself, it makes a mess. Look at Safari. Safari? A trek through the African bush? And the icon is a compass? Excuse me, what's the program for?

Many thanks for the pointer to Fontcase -- not what I was actually talking about, but a very nice improvement on Fontbook.

Fontcard took over the drop down menu in any program, Cocoa or Carbon, and provided a very attractive font menu with the fonts groups in their families and you could also sort them into collections.

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]

Finally I decided to give PL a change and bought a license. After turning those toolbar colors and shadows it is not so bad anymore. Still I wish those palettes to be redesigned, with fonts enlarged, and having some margins instead of gluing all controls to the edge... Yeah, yeah, I am repeating myself. But yes I admit PL is pretty powerful, and I bought it just because one of my clients is sending me a lot of Photoshop designs and PL does open Photoshop pretty well

Regarding the PL icon, you see bubbles, I see a nice metaphor. We won't meet on that one. Regarding Mac OS X HIG -- I don't care! They don't know the meaning of the word "metaphor". When Apple tries for a metaphor itself, it makes a mess. Look at Safari. Safari? A trek through the African bush? And the icon is a compass? Excuse me, what's the program for?

Discussion about taste is pointless and this is what were are trying to do here, so let's leave the icon alone there.

Still I recommend you reading a HIG, it is not a top action literature, however it does contain some useful guidelines aside of some "metaphoric" stuff, and probably you will understand better what is current overall Apple idea about OSX, and directions of its UI evolvement. So you may agree with HIG or not, but making all developers follow it gives you consistent experience for all applications, predictable keyboard shortcuts and behavior, so you don't need to learn every new application all over again.

Many thanks for the pointer to Fontcase -- not what I was actually talking about, but a very nice improvement on Fontbook. Fontcard took over the drop down menu in any program, Cocoa or Carbon, and provided a very attractive font menu with the fonts groups in their families and you could also sort them into collections.

I don't work a lot with fonts. I do more font-less text-less designs, but I am using DrawIt from the Fontcase producer to do some icons. You may try DrawIt as well, it is great piece of software, a little buggy though.

[podperson]

Hey Ono,

I agree with a lot of your comments. I have more issues with deep structural issues in Photoline that surface cosmetics. Photoline's icon manages the rather impressive trick of having an even worse icon than Photoshop CS5.

The only reason I've not been participating in these conversations more actively is that while I like Photoline and continue to recommend it to people seeking an inexpensive Photoshop alternative, I finally gave up and bought CS4 with a free upgrade to CS5, so I'm using Photoshop again. Oh well.

Photoline simply has too many things that aren't quite right for me to be willing and able to put up with it for serious work. I wish it weren't so. That said, it's miles ahead of Pixelmator and Acorn (on the Mac) and far more functional than Paintshop Pro, although PSP is better in some areas.

[podperson]

My old icon is starting to look a little bit dated, so I've created a new version. This has a hint of iPad and a camera inspired by the latest "EVIL" (mirrorless interchangeable lens) designs from Panasonic, Olympus, and Sony (it's some kind of a Frankenstein's monster built out of NEX, LX-3, and E-P1 parts). This time, for your convenience, I've included a Mac .icns file and a Windows .ico file.

To change Photoline's icon on a Mac, simply right-click on Photoline to "view package contents" and then copy and paste the icon file into the Resources subdirectory. You need a utility like IconChanger to modify the icon of a Windows executable.

[greenmorpher]

... a camera inspired by the latest "EVIL" (mirrorless interchangeable lens) designs from Panasonic, Olympus, and Sony (it's some kind of a Frankenstein's monster built out of NEX, LX-3, and E-P1 parts).

May thanks, Poddo. "Evil cameras" -- ha, ha. I'm rather intrigued by them. However, I recently started using an LX3 (I love a good wide angle lens with a bit of aperture) and quickly ran into the problem (for me) of no viewfinder. For those using no-viewfinder cameras who yearn to have the option of putting it up to their eye, the Clearviewer http://clearviewer.com/Products.html, which I've just bought, is a low cost and surprisingly effective solution. It adds a little bit of bulk, but the camera with it fitted still remains pocketable in an outdoor jacket.

The Clearviewer, as you can see, is simply a low magnifying lens on a folding arm which attaches to the camera by the tripod socket or the flash shoe. With it, you can use the camera like a real(!) camera -- up to your eye, pressed to your face for stability -- and you can see the screen clearly in all kinds of lights. I was feeling as though I was struggling with the LX3 whenever I used it -- now it is part of the flow and my pictures with it have instantly improved.

All I need now is to save up enough to upgrade to the LX5 (I'll be able to use the Clearviewer with it, too) with that 90mm (135 equivalent) telephoto reach, I'll be content pretty much forever, I think!

By the way, I have no pecuniary interest in the Clearviewer, I am just a thrilled customer.

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

Clearviewer.jpg

[podperson]

That's a neat contraption.

Continuing off-topic: I'm sticking with DSLRs because I like optical viewfinders too much, but I'm following recent developments with great interest (the new Sony "pellicle" cameras and the Panasonic GF-1 are particularly nice designs), but the problem is that if you want a pocket camera you need a small lens, which makes the 1/1.7" sensor cameras (like the Panasonic LX3/5 and the Canon S90/95 and G11) the best option. (The NEX-5 is tiny, but its lenses are all huge, which kind of defeats the whole purpose.)

[greenmorpher]

My other camera is a Kodak P880 -- five years old now and a little slow and lacking camera shake reduction. However it has a superb lens, Schneider Variogon 24-140mm (135 equivalent) f2.8~4 (I think). Also the interface is great. Just a touch bulky for walking around, although not heavy. My days of carrying a brace of SLRs and all the accessories everywhere are over.

Cheers, Geoff

[podperson]

My current "compact" is a Panasonic TZ-5 (28-280mm equivalent lens). I think my next might be a Canon S95... if I'm going to settle for inferior low-light performance, I'd like it to be pocketable. But, frankly, right now the iPhone 4 takes better photos and video than most compact cameras and isn't "one more damn thing" to carry around and keep charged. If it had a bit of a zoom lens and a few manual controls it would essentially do the entire job of a compact (and have a built-in video editor as well).

If I'm going to carry around a non-pocketable camera, it might as well have decent low-light performance. So for me right now that's a Nikon D5000 (which is a pretty small DSLR). (And my next DSLR will probably be whatever replaces the D700, especially if Nikon makes it smaller and lighter.)

It's amazing how good the images out of a decent compact are — better than anything I could get out of pretty advanced analog gear. But it just makes me want even better output. I remember being shocked when I first looked at my digital photos at 1:1.

As an aside: if I could afford it, I think my ideal camera would be a Leica M-9. I cut my teeth on rangefinder cameras (I had a Ricoh 500GX). The Leica is a full-frame camera, but because it's not a DSLR it's actually not much bigger than the micro 4/3 cameras, and it's built like a tank and feels like jewellery. Lovely piece of kit. But it costs as much as a compact car. On the other hand, autofocus is pretty darn nice when photographing toddlers and the M-9's continuous shooting isn't great either.

[podperson]

Back to the topic at hand.

...but I am not falling into the trap of thinking Apple's current GUI is perfect. It is not.

...

Regarding the PL icon, you see bubbles, I see a nice metaphor. We won't meet on that one. Regarding Mac OS X HIG -- I don't care! They don't know the meaning of the word "metaphor". When Apple tries for a metaphor itself, it makes a mess. Look at Safari. Safari? A trek through the African bush? And the icon is a compass? Excuse me, what's the program for?

I have to side with Ono on the HIG side of things. Apple's definitely imperfect w.r.t. following its own rules, but it's less bad than pretty much anyone else. Safari's tabs are a case in point: they tried to do the "right thing" conceptually with tabs with the 4.x betas but, essentially, it annoyed too many users, so they went back. Safari's tabs don't make conceptual sense, but they use less screen real estate and cause fewer random issues than Chrome tabs.

As for metaphors — wow, you're picking a terrible example to complain about. Most programs these days either have a completely random name (e.g. "Firefox" or "Cornerstone" or "Opera") or a more-or-less literal name (e.g. "iPhoto" or "zBrush" or "Internet Explorer"). Safari is one of the few programs which as a metaphorical name that actually makes sense. (Actually you could make a case for Cornerstone too.) A "safari" is a trek through the wilderness ("the web"), and a compass is a good thing to take on a trek.

I think Safari's compass is a whole heck of a lot better than a very bad imitation of Photoshop's icon which is in itself a lame, lame icon. (CS5's is even worse than the earlier "periodic table" idea.) Perhaps the great grandaddy of all these kinds of program was a piece of software called "Digital Darkroom" whose icon was an enlarger (not a "darkroom"). That's a metaphor. Photoline's icon isn't even good typography.

[Cantello]

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

This is just to let you know that your mockups look absolutely fabulous! I for my part would love to see PL look like this.

[ono]

My old icon is starting to look a little bit dated, so I've created a new version. This has a hint of iPad and a camera inspired by the latest "EVIL" (mirrorless interchangeable lens) designs from Panasonic, Olympus, and Sony (it's some kind of a Frankenstein's monster built out of NEX, LX-3, and E-P1 parts). This time, for your convenience, I've included a Mac .icns file and a Windows .ico file.

Your new icon looks great of bright background, but doesn't look well in Dock, as it is simply bit too dark and blends too much with Dock's background.

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

This is just to let you know that your mockups look absolutely fabulous! I for my part would love to see PL look like this.

PL is great piece of software, but IMHO first impression isn't really good just because the UI layout. I think polishing it bit will bring many new users, as it is really much better than Pixelmator or Acorn.

[Cantello]

PL is great piece of software, but IMHO first impression isn't really good just because the UI layout. I think polishing it bit will bring many new users, as it is really much better than Pixelmator or Acorn.

My impression exactly. I know that being developed on two independant platforms leads to looking a bit out of context in either, but just having used different graphics editors on both platforms, I can say you are totally spot on: If I'd had to decide between, say, Pixelmator on OSX/PhotoPlus on Win and PhotoLine, I would probably not choose PL based on my first (or second, or even third) impression.

[ono]

I've posted my UI suggestions to mr. Gerhard. I'll share little details with rest of you so you can tall me what do you think.

(1) 1st we can do simple trick to give tool settings pane more space that does not require relayout of whole gui - centering tool pane content vertically so:

becomes and sometime in the future becomes

becomes and sometime in the future becomes

(2) Also I suggested tweaking Web Export dialog (as I use it often), the new disk icon to export is small, hard to catch with the mouse. Also I'd love center export button to become default (Return triggered) button so:

becomes

Tell me what do you think. Cheers.

[bkh]

Your suggestions definitely look better. However, I wonder if they actually work better. In particular, I would vote against making sliders even shorther than they are. Sometimes, they are already pretty difficult to use. Besides, I'd be interested to see what you'd suggest for the text tool settings - which are also supposed to fit into the same window.

Apart from this, I'd be inclined to change the format of the tool settings window altogether. At present, my tool settings window is on the right side of my screen, together with the Layer and Attributes panels, mainly because they have the same width - more or less as shown on http://www.pl32.com/pages/sample.php (translated to Mac, of course). Imo, the tool settings panel should best be placed next to the tools panel (or maybe even become part of it??? - some important tool settings are already in the tools panel). I could well imagine a vertical strip, to be placed below the tool bar, or a one-line horizontal one, to be placed below the main menu. Have you thought about that?

I also agree with most of your suggestions about the Web export pane, except that I wouldn't make the section labelled "Export settings" look like the "GIF settings" - if both (or all three, if you open the larger pane) columns are visually similar, you are visually lead to the assumption that all columns work in the same way -- while the left column contains settings relevant to the other (two). Besides, conceptually, "Action" belongs to the export settings - the action is only applied to the exported image.

Cheers

Burkhard.