steve_m

Thanks very much for this Ronnyb. Good spot!

Hey Steve if I can jump on Alex's train here — hope you don't mind Alex ;)
 
I've noticed in several places in the UI in the Preferences panel specifically but generally in the UI as well, the lower parts of the UI text fields (set to Large in the UI section, and I have a non-retina MBP) seem to be cropping the fonts descenders... Again it's minor, but I whole-heartedly agree with Alex that the UI refinement via consistency and attention to details and polish translates for a more efficient and professional tool to use.
Attached are some places to look into when you have time...
 
Also my account is reaching it's total upload quota... can one of the Admin's up my quota again? Thanks!
 
 

Hi Steve,
I am happy that you don’t feel offended by these suggestions. Well, I thought I could then append my review of the Character panel as well. You must know, this is one of the main places where I go whenever I am using Designer. Okay, you got me … Designer is my Publisher substitute … 
But anyway, I find the visual hierarchies in this panel still not clear enough. I believe the sub-header background (“Underline and Strikethrough”, “Positioning and Transform” etc.) is still a bit too dark in proportion to the bars that separate the sidebar panels themselves. I believe you could go somewhat brighter here. In figure (A.) I quickly added some remarks to the current layout. You will see that we encounter roughly the same issues as in the context toolbars. In figure (B.), I brightened the sub-header backgrounds a bit and removed some of the positioning issues, just in order to see if it makes any difference. And to my eyes, it does. It helps clear up the hierarchies.
Nonetheless, and this is entirely tentative, I wondered if you could organize the panel in a somewhat different way. First off, I am aware that you will be facing conflicts with the design of other panels, such as the Text Styles panel, as soon as you revisit the current design. But I wondered what would happen if we replaced the “bar” structure with a “well” structure, as indicated in figure (C.). I think that would make the visual hierarchies even clearer. You would avoid splitting the panel horizontally, indicating that all these options are belonging to the same category. And last but not least, such a layout might save you a few pixels, since each “well” would be less tall than the corresponding combination of “bars” or “strips.” (But that would have to be checked more closely, since we would have to take into account the distances between the wells. In the end, both methods would presumably create the same panel height.)
Again, I know this is a pretty “local” suggestion that might create problems with the overall consistency of the interface. Nonetheless, I thought it might help to illustrate the issues I have with this panel. I hope that makes sense … 
Thanks again for your work! I know that redoing an interface of such a complex app is a bit more difficult than just nudging pixels around in Affinity Photo … 
Alex

Thanks again Alex. Really appreciate your feedback and suggestions. They really help.

KipV - Don't worry, the changes are very subtle and difficult to spot. I must admit, I've used the zoom tool quite a bit while working on this!

Hi Steve,
 
great to hear from you. It is really so nice to see this evolving, and though these are all minor things, they will make the user experience so much better. Well, I think one of my main suggestions for the next iteration would be caring for the distances, the alignment, and the distribution of the elements on a pixel level.
 
When you take out your pixel ruler, you will see that many of the distances among the elements of the toolbars and in the panels are quite random. Just have a look at the Pencil context toolbar or the Character panel, for instance. I would really suggest that you take measure of these things in every part of the interface, and though the required adjustments are very subtle in most cases (very often only +/– one pixel), you will see that slightly correcting these disparities will clean up the interface considerably.
 
As an example, let me append a review of the context toolbar for the Pencil tool. You will find similar thingies in many other parts of the interface as well. As I said, these are pretty small ones, but I think you will agree that getting these straight (compare my rough attempt in the screen shot below) will be beneficial to the overall user experience.
 
Great work! Love it …
Alex  :)

Thanks again for your comments Alex. It's really helpful to get such detailed feedback and suggestions. We're definitely interested in any observations, no matter how small. As you say, they all add up to make it better overall.

Thank you so much—all the hard work that goes into the Affinity eco-system is truly appreciated.

Thanks Alex - Fantastic observations! 

Hi Matt … and Steve,
 
wow! The light user interface is getting lovely! It is already looking *so much better* now. Isn’t it remarkable how these seemingly little tweaks improve the overall appearance? I am really happy to see this unfold …  :) :)
 
Now I wonder if we should still report some of those minor UI details, since I am sure you caught the users’ intentions. For instance, the UI fonts are still looking somewhat jagged and low-quality on non-retina devices (anti-aliasing). Would you still be interested in such small observations?  :unsure:
 
In any case, this is going to be really nice! Your hard work is definitely paying off …  :D
Cheers, Alex

First of all, many thanks for the new Light-UI - it helps much! I don't use it only under daylight conditions, it depends even on a picture, how bright it is. With the Light-UI and setting the Background Grey Level up, it is much more pleasant to work. But to change these settings individual for a picture it is less intuitiv to go every time to Preferences and chose the User Interface for a modification.   My simple idea and a big wish: Please make a placeable Icon for the Menubar which allows you to switch between Light & Dark with only one click. The arrow on the right side allows you to change the Background Grey Level with a simple fader like in the Preferences/User Interface. Isn't that much more user-friendly? : )      

Hi Alex, here's a non-retina version of the screenshot.
 
Steve

Thanks everyone for all the testing you've been doing. It's much appreciated. Thanks also for the suggestions. We'll have another beta ready fairly soon which will include updates to the light UI. In the meantime, please keep the comments / feedback coming, it's all very helpful.

Haha. Thanks Matt!
 
Hopefully someday :-)

Thanks everyone for all the testing you've been doing. It's much appreciated. Thanks also for the suggestions. We'll have another beta ready fairly soon which will include updates to the light UI. In the meantime, please keep the comments / feedback coming, it's all very helpful.

Thanks everyone for all the testing you've been doing. It's much appreciated. Thanks also for the suggestions. We'll have another beta ready fairly soon which will include updates to the light UI. In the meantime, please keep the comments / feedback coming, it's all very helpful.

Thanks everyone for all the testing you've been doing. It's much appreciated. Thanks also for the suggestions. We'll have another beta ready fairly soon which will include updates to the light UI. In the meantime, please keep the comments / feedback coming, it's all very helpful.

@steve_m:
 
Are you ever going to get a Staff badge?

Hi Alex, here's a non-retina version of the screenshot.
 
Steve

Hi everybody,
 
come on, I think we must be fair in this whole discussion. It doesn’t make sense to get personal and cling on words like “experimenting.” If each and every word people have uttered here in the past few years would be scrutinized like the words that have been uttered by the staff in this thread, I fear we would have to close down this forum. That simply does not make sense. It creates frustration on both sides and detracts from the subject matter under discussion.
 
So let us try to find a more balanced view. It is undeniable that the light user interface was announced as a major feature of the upcoming version, and therefore it is to be expected that discussions about this feature will arise in the beta thread. It is a new feature, this thread was created as an invitation to give feedback about the new features, so let us discuss. But please let us discuss to the point and avoid exaggerations. Does anyone remember the early versions of OS X? Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar? Well, in comparison to the graphic and typographic atrocities of these early times, the issues under discussion here are actually tiny details. And have a look at how Apple struggles with the creation of new interfaces for Motion or Logic, just to name a few. If you were to start a discussion here, you would not easily come to an end. So we should not allow us to get carried away and have a sense of proportion. We are not discussing fundamental faults, but little aspects that might need tiny tweaks to be perfect.
 
That said, I would want to summarise the discussion in the following way:
On the one hand, I think it is hardly deniable that there are certain usability issues with the user interface, such as low contrast or unclear visual hierarchies (text-related panels). Some of these are already being addressed. Then there are the consistency issues (elements with the same function but different styles), furthermore the alignment, border and element size issues. In my opinion, they do not impair the usability, but in sum, they will add a certain amount of visual noise to the user interface. I have the impression that reducing this noise would be welcome and improve the user experience. Then there is the question of platform-specifity. To my eyes, some elements of the light user interface look somewhat out of place in the context of macOS, as JGD rightly noted. For instance, the marked gradient at the top, and some of the buttons, for instance on the preferences panel. These issues naturally do not arise with the dark interface, since that is so different from the overall design of macOS that a direct comparison does not suggest itself. But with the light UI, things are different. It is inevitable that these differences will become more noticeable here. Did I forget an important point? So these observations and thoughts, as Matt rightly pointed out, are personal opinions, of course. Everyone is invited to disagree …  :D
 
Cheers, Alex  :)

Hi Alex, here's a non-retina version of the screenshot.
 
Steve

R C-R - glad you like it!
 
As Matt says, I'm experimenting with some code at the moment and am interested to see if people like the way it looks.

Hi, I'm a developer currently working on the light UI. A few people have mentioned that the selected tool highlight isn't dark enough on the light UI. Does this look better?
 

 

Hi Alex, here's a non-retina version of the screenshot.
 
Steve

Hi Alex, here's a non-retina version of the screenshot.
 
Steve