Large List of Suggestions and Requests for PhotoLine UI

[shijan]

Here is separate special thread of my Suggestions and Requests related only to PhotoLine User Interface.

It's up to developers to accept those suggestions or not. One request per post. Please keep this thread free from spam and from abstract non technical discussions.
To make this thread cleaner, i will just delete posts with implemented options and will update global changes list in "[Legacy] Large List of Suggestions and Requests for Photoline UI and Tools"

UI icons redesign.
Please Follow my PhotoLine UI Icons Customization Project based on SF Apple Symbols icons here: https://www.pl32.com/forum3/viewtopic.p ... 2&start=15

Current PhotoLine icons still far from perfect and looks very random. Some have very basic pixel look, some use gradients and dull shades. Due legacy drop shadow effect a lot of icons are off-centered. There is also completely different Icons group inside some adjustments tools. Take a look at other apps, they take huge amount of attention to UI and icons.
Just refresh existing icons with slightly bolder and crisper look. For example last reference from macOS 10.16 Big Sur with rounder corners and bolder lines looks nice https://photo2.tinhte.vn/data/attachmen ... image.jpeg
In some situations monochrome icons may look less readable. Color icons may provide better visual representation of tool functionality and usually easier to locate and separate by human eye. The problem is not in color or monochrome icons but in icons style. For example take a look at Blender or Cinema 4D icons https://i.ytimg.com/vi/91wGj87ZmzE/maxresdefault.jpg They use simple but very nice looking colored icons that fells like part of the UI style, but not as a separate random images. Icon colors are not randomly selected but work as additional visual indicators. Each color represents a group of similar specific tools. Quality icons design is rather complicated and time consuming task. Formally icons are only cosmetic improvement that almost don't affect application usability but consumes huge amount of time for drawing.

[shijan]

Auto hide status bar at Fullscreen mode. Or at least request for option like:
View -> Hide status Bar

[shijan]

Double click (or right click, or middle click) on any slider handle to reset it to default.

[shijan]

In Color selection HSV and Grayscale mode black located at the top and white located at the bottom. Sort of flipped. Most apps (as well as Curves tool) usually use black at the bottom. RGB gradient direction is also flipped.
Also color selection area could be larger in size (flexible window or fixed window sizes settings) for more precise color selection.

[shijan]

Multiple separate tabs for simple settings looks not too user friendly. Too many empty space, too many clicks here and there during adjustments.


It is better just use larger window size and fit all controls in single unified layout.

[shijan]

Some time ago points in vector tools where changed to round shape instead of square. Round points look really nice.
So maybe it is logical to change points in Curves tool to same friendly round look?
Something like this or this:

[shijan]

Icons like these don't works well at all.


- It is way simpler to see text near control than always hover icon to see tool tip text.
- These icons provide inconstancy in UI, they feels like belong to other app.
- All other tools except curves and Expose use text names.
- Icons vs text have no any difference in vertical docked size layout
- All fits well to compact horizontal layout docked to tab as well.
- No problem with single floating window layout because it could be adjusted to any size.
- Icons are dead end if you need to add new sliders in future. 3 sliders with icons are more less usable, 4 sliders with icons produce questions, 6 sliders with icons are total disaster.

I suggest to replace those signs with simple, compact and unified well recognized text names to match all other tools logic like this:

[shijan]

Fix browser tree to show native pixel perfect icon size on mac OS.
current:


suggested:

[shijan]

Match appearance of "auto mode for all channels" view to "single channel" view. Currently histogram areas covered with colored huds are slightly hard to see, especially green color.

[shijan]

Option for 100% no border frame around image. There are situations when it is critical to see original mage on background without any additional border frame. Also that jumping blurry pixel line border is really distracting.


for example something like this in settings:

[shijan]

Extend Transform arrow handle active area to all object edges instead of single point in the middle of each edge.
Use more user friendly, position dependent transform/rotate handle cursors.
Example:

[shijan]

Option to autohide handles during object movement.
Example:

[shijan]

...

[shijan]

Mac OS UI. When tools windows arranged to two vertical columns there is a overlapped drop shadow from window between them.
Is it possible to make them snap one to other without that distracting shadow in between?


Suggested:

[shijan]

Mac OS UI. Option to force native Dark Mode (including window toolbars and menus).