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Let's see some ideas for the Export Window! :)


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13 minutes ago, Arthug said:

How about this?

I don't care, as long as it doesn't have the "More" button! :P 

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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3 hours ago, Arthug said:

How about this?

image.png.fc161e87dab736fd3a6576580d73b818.png

You can pin frequently used formats, and more supported formats can be added to the list without punching your eyes.

 

I initially thought about this solution, but if you want to export to the other file formats, you'd need to make them visible. That's why I opted for an arrow that moves/ slides the screen to the second row of options. Which you also explicitly specify for each file format, whether they need to be on row 1 (the home row) or row 2.

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The horizontal list of export options needs to go, period. It's not practical in the slightest to have the list the way it is in V1. Having icons can still be doable, but they should not be coloured, and the list should be vertical as to reduce the wasted space. As more export formats get added, having all of them coloured will just make it look worse and worse as time goes by.

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4 hours ago, Frozen Death Knight said:

It's not practical in the slightest to have the list the way it is in V1.

sounds like you're never switching file-type?

this is not at all about how it looks, but about getting actual work done: unhindered every-day-tasks using this software.
it used to be one click to switch file-type now it's two, probably additional scrolling, and waaay too much time to find, what you are looking for.
changes to the worse like this one are like torture (to me). it's great though that "more" is gone, but i mostly use presets.
a drop-down-menu is the worst UI-element you can think of, in terms of ergonomics, workflow, speed.

horizontal vs vertical: what are you talking about? there's lots of space! now with preview shown, horizontal at top makes more sense, since more images are landscape than portrait, so you'd free space for that. and ergonomics again: it's the first you need to click when switching file-type. left o right of the window would be too much mouse-movement, and not really a first area to hook your eyes to, within export-settings-panel vertically next to the other settings would be kinda insane.
also our eyes are next to each other (if you still have two of em) not on top of each other: you find things faster on screen when listed horizontally; your eyes don't have to move, you just instantly see it and click it! try it yourself with a mockup, if you don't believe. ergonomics! the horizontal icons on-top solution has been just superior for this use-case. period. (still not sure if your post is just some trolling...)

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41 minutes ago, ichier said:

a drop-down-menu is the worst UI-element you can think of

It depends on how it's implemented. If you can select it with the Tab key and then navigate it with arrows or by typing the names, a dropdown is OK, especially if you can expect to potentially include dozens of items.
Navigating the already open menu with keys works on MacOS, but since Serif is using custom UI elements, almost all MacOS accessibility features like "press Tab key to move focus" are non-functional because Affinity UI elements don't adhere to Apple's UI guidelines.
So to get to the menu in the first place, you must first attempt to click this tiny target.
All for the sake of the questionable goal to have a "cross-platform unified" UI. With the worst of both worlds, obviously. :/ 

In my opinion, a scrollable vertical list like in the New Document dialog is the way to go here, both for the general format choice and for presets.
That's what I consider UI design consistency: Be at least consistent within your product!

(In the same vein, the New Document dialog's right-hand section should revert to its original v1 layout which – duh! *face palm* – was exactly the same concept like "new" – and in my opinion excellent – right-hand section of the v2 Export dialog. 
My goodness… O.o)

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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They should just use the V1 dialog again, but instead of having a more button make the window longer and expose all options. I also don't see the need for always seeing the preview, it takes up a lot of space and isn't useful a lot of the time when so small anyway.

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33 minutes ago, loukash said:

It depends on how it's implemented. If you can select it with the Tab key and then navigate it with arrows or by typing the names, a dropdown is OK, especially if you can expect to potentially include dozens of items.

yes sure, for forms, handling a lot of data this can be superiour, but not the case here, where you can have a one-click-solution.

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okay, quick mock-up. my idea of how workflow would be fastest:

exportmockup.thumb.png.9d32ebf89bb474aad5e4117492c9f48a.png

consider mouse-movements: first select file-type, then preset. one direction. that's why a vertical list, consistent with the welcome screen (which i don't use at all), on the far left is bad: it's always far and you'd go up and down. did i mention, that i'm an ergonomics-nazi? ;)

preview is useful when using compression, but a button to open/close|on/off the preview would be fine for avoiding the machine doing unnecessary calculations.

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1 hour ago, ichier said:

quick mock-up

Haha, you have just proven my point why a horizontal line of icons is an Utterly Bad Idea™… ;) 
I mean, how wide do you want the window to be if you have like 36 different formats to export?
Which is not an unrealistic number, given the scope of feature requests for formats that Affinity "should" support.
I'm pretty sure that this is the reason why Serif has ditched this concept.

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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2 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

If you are going to have a scroll bar for a long list, at least sort the entries alphabetically. Or split it into a "last used"/"all formats" list, so that if I only ever use PDF when using APub, PDF is always showing.

yeah sure, stuff like that (see the suggestion with the ellipsis as well), would be nice. but that's something you will probably never have in a drop-down xD

first: fix what turned worse and what is little work!
second: put in fancy automation/options-stuff.

right now i really don't care bout that, since ...

2 hours ago, loukash said:

I mean, how wide do you want the window to be if you have like 36 different formats to export?

oh c'mon stop trolling! go click some drop downs if you need to waste some energy and time ;)

this mockup has around double the formats than affinity currently supports. so thoughts like this are pretty much pointless. and i doubt, that its ever gonna be more than what would fit in here!
for real icons would be centered with some space left and right. this scrolling-option here is just a fallback for cases where this window gets super small! edit: the export windows is resizable, and i started the mockup with just a screenshot of mine, wich is bigger than default. /edit
and even if it would be 40 formats: still be way faster than anything else... that's what its about, remember? a fast workflow that doesn't annoy you! as opposed to right now.
seriously, if affinity will support lots of export-formats in the future, those need to be pre-selected (as suggested above), in order to provide a proper workflow.

and because you seem to have missed it: you can see v1-mockups above. i did that one only because of my feature wishes, since it became clear to me, what would be best about the preset-list being no drop-down as well. that'd be super neat. in the end there would be one nasty unnecessary time-stealing drop-down eliminated instead of one added.

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14 minutes ago, doodledude said:

Bring back the V1 export window with the icons along the top.

If too many icons allow scrolling and sorting so favourite formats can be moved to front.

The new dropdown export window in v2 is so generic and slower to use than the old layout

It feels less nice too which I think is unfortunate, not everybody will care but I like my tool feeling slick.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Yes please, let's make the Export Screen Great Again!

In my case for complex projects it takes ages to upload the file preview, and in mostly occasions I don't even see it.

IMO I don't see any advantage of having quick preview feature versus the having the beautiful icons of quick file type selection of the V1 (those icons V1 was much intuitive and had a different UI compared with the Adobe Suite). 

So I would like to see the V1 UI back for this screen, or at least quick file type selection of the V1 added to the V2.

----------------------

Included files:

Image: EXPORT FILE UI – V2

image.png.7720a6d4fa8e60e3a1235d8113912831.png

Image: EXPORT FILE UI – V1image.png.68d12d6a9d2947e265e6d77f93c2762f.png

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