Guest Posted December 7, 2020 Share Posted December 7, 2020 (edited) After becoming utterly frustrated with the Layers palette the other day’d I thought I put together some idea(s) as to how it might be improved. While many folks (myself included) often lament the need for separate artboards and layers, many apps (Sketch, Figma, OmniGraffle, etc) do seem to have gone with this concept of unifying artboards, layers and objects. While I'd love separate palettes for artboards and layers, I realize my main issue is with the lack of differentiation between the various elements contained within the Layers palette. Everything looks the same, and you have to read the grey threaded text to the side of the layer/object name to ascertain what type of element you're dealing with; artboards, layers, images, pixel layers, groups, curves, shapes, etc. Also, as many of these elements have different behaviours when other elements are dragged onto them (layers contain and stack elements, curves/shapes/etc mask elements, etc) it's not always clear (without reading the grey text) how each element will react with other elements. We're used to quickly scanning icons (just look at the various toolbars and panels) for context. Replacing the text with clear, recognizable visual icons representing the types of elements would go along way in helping folks immediately recognize and better understand the structure and relations between the various elements contained in the layers palette. It would also free up space for longer visible layer/object names (ie: Introduction (Spanish), or Hero Image (Asia Pacific), +UK_InfectionRateGraph_2020) that could be used in various ways in our product workflows. Also, adding decreasing tints of colours for children of layers and objects can help to further visually communicate the structure. Also reflecting the layers users specific colour in the thin gradient bar at the bottom would better help to relate the two. I've never been 100% sure what blue gradient is meant to signify. Also doing something similar on the left side reflecting the artboard and its children could be really useful in showing the extent of the elements contained within that one artboard in context of the entire layers panel. Being able to 'solo' artboards (or layers, groups, etc - essentially hide everything else except for what you've requested to be solo'd) would also be really helpful when working with large, complex documents, and needing to focus on only one aspect for a time. Edited December 7, 2020 by Guest Updated image and added artboard/layer colours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jowday Posted December 8, 2020 Share Posted December 8, 2020 How about a search field in that layers panel, eh? Quote "The user interface is supposed to work for me - I am not supposed to work for the user interface." Computer-, operating system- and software agnostic; I am a result oriented professional. Look for a fanboy somewhere else. “When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.” ― Confucius Not an Affinity user og forum user anymore. The software continued to disappoint and not deliver. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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