What do you call the text at the bottom of the window?

[R C-R]

Silly thing to be bothered about I know but I don't know what to call the context-sensitive text that appears at the bottom of the workspace window that gives a brief description of the options available for the currently selected tool.

 

Does it have an official name, or one that most people know it by?

[Lee D]

Hi R C-R,

 

I believe you're referring to the Status bar, this shows at the bottom of an active document and shows hints and shortcuts.

 

Hope this helps.

 

L

[Asha]

Tool Tips

[R C-R]

Thanks for the quick replies! So to keep everybody happy & for maximum clarity I guess I could refer to it as the Status bar & to what it displays as Tool Tips.  :)

[Sean P]

The text that appears at the bottom is generally referred to as 'Hintline text'. I should also add that Tool Tips are actually the pieces of text that appears when a cursor is placed over a button or option - infact there is an option in Preferences to control the delay as to when they appear and is called 'Tooltip Delay'.

[R C-R]

I am familiar with the widespread use of "Tool Tips" to refer to the text that pops up after a delay when hovering the pointer over a button or other UI element, but I have never heard of the word "Hintline" before now, & I suspect that is true for most users.

 

So with that in mind, perhaps I should refer to it as "the hint text in the Status bar" so other Affinity users will know what I'm talking about.  :D

[Oval]

text that appears at the bottom … Hintline

 

We believe “Hintline” is not explained in Affinity Help and not a used word there: “Status bar: The status bar at the bottom of the active document view provides useful information such as hints and shortcuts for the current tool or operation.”  :(

 

-1 The “Status bar” is not visualized in the “Interface Visual Reference”?!  :(

 

This is why even professionals are asking here and why we want a reference and overview screen with a short (visual) explanation of the UI.  :)

 

Please, Sean. BTW: Any news of the manual? 

 

And please R C-R and Asha, vote for something like that.  :wub:

[R C-R]

The “Status bar” is not visualized in the “Interface Visual Reference”?!

 

To be fair about it, it is shown (if that is what you mean by visualized), but like everything else in that help topic reference it is quite tiny unless you go to full screen mode on a latge monitor.

 

A reference screen like you proposed in the linked topic would be handy but I'm not sure what you mean by double SHIFT, double HELP or double CMD, & the customize option seems a bit overly elaborate. Perhaps just including a direct link to the "At a Glance" help topic in the Help menu would be useful to beginners -- but I suspect the help system is, to put it kindly, "underused" by most & that would also be true of a reference screen.

 

Personally, I would rather see the resources needed for this screen devoted to getting the manuals completed. Although I'm not exactly in love with the iBook format, considering how quickly the Affinity apps are being updated with new features, I think the best way to publish the manuals is as iBooks so they can easily be updated to keep them current.

[Oval]

Perhaps Affinity Help is “underused” because things could be described better. Like the unexplained Hintline.

 

People who do not know what/where the Status bar is, cannot find it in that Visual Reference (which is in great need of improvement). The word “Status bar” is not visualized. A visual reference should label all items and should be shown/linked at the beginning, not hided somewhere.

 

double = press twice, not once

[R C-R]

Thanks for the clarification about what you mean by "visualized," which I take to mean about the same thing as "labeled." I agree that would be helpful, but it might be difficult to adapt to small screens without covering too much of the workspace with tiny print too small to read.

 

Double pressing modifier keys to invoke a reference screen probably violates some Apple Developer guidelines & could be very annoying because it would be too easy to trigger by accident, so perhaps some other way to invoke it would be better?

[Oval]

I agree that would be helpful, but it might be difficult to adapt to small screens

Thanks, Serif gets more time if things (words, pictures, procedures, …) are really explained and people must not ask here and by email, because the Affinity Help is not clear/usable enough.

 

It is like the first museum visit. If you do not have the floor plans (only parts of the orientation system, not the overview), you do not get quick where you want. There is enough place on the smallest screens. OK, everything is difficult if you do not know how to do it didactically.

[R C-R]

Regarding there being enough space on the screen, please consider that some users may be working on a 13" 1280x800 non-retina MacBook Pro screen & like me may not have the same visual acuity they had when they were younger.

 

Using text much below 10 points that does not contrast strongly with the background will limit the usability for them, greatly restricting how much text you can show on the screen at one time without covering things up. I suppose you could implement a "Tool Tips" type popup to show more or scrolling or magnification, but the more complicated it gets the longer it would take to develop & the less likely users are to use it.

 

Anyway, all things considered, I still think a manual is the best way to supplement the help system, video tutorials, & these forums.

[Asha]

Maybe I'm showing my age and the fact that I also work on Microsoft Windows, but...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooltip

 

"A common variant, especially in older software, is displaying a description of the tool in a status bar."

[Oval]

Important: consistent terminology, clearly described by Serif, not by M$ or wikipedia.

 

If people ask, “what do you call …”, Serif should improve the Affinity Help, not only write a manual.

[R C-R]

Asha, if it makes you feel any better about the age thing, I am old enough to remember "balloon help" in System 7, Microsoft style yellow background application Tool Tips that annoyingly popped up immediately over the pointer & vanish after a preset delay, & several other variations on that theme.

 

A little more recently, I have seen OS X style application Tool Tips implemented so badly that the wrong tip pops up or the zone that activates the tip is offset from the button it is intended for, making getting the right one to pop up a frustrating trial & error process, & even ones that quit working reliably after an OS X update.

 

Regarding the hint/tip/clue/whatever text that appears in the Status bar, I just wanted to know the best way to refer to it, one that would be clear to as many users as possible what I was talking about. "Status bar text" seems to be about as good a way to do that as any other, & is short enough that I might actually use it!  :lol:

[R C-R]

Important: consistent terminology, clearly described by Serif, not by M$ or wikipedia.

 

If people ask, “what do you call …”, Serif should improve the Affinity Help, not only write a manual.

Affinity Help describes it as "useful information such as hints and shortcuts for the current tool or operation," which seems to me to be about as consistent & concise as it can be considering the variety of things it can apply to. Conciseness is important -- imagine trying to cram even that much text into a visualization label!

 

People ask what to call something mostly because there is less consistency from one application to the next than we would like, but I do not see how Serif/Affinity can do much about that, above & beyond providing the existing help system, in-app Tool Tips & Status bar text, video tutorials, & these forums, plus the "real soon now" manuals.

[Oval]

… but I do not see how Serif/Affinity can do much about that …

misunderstood, so three examples:

 

• explaining words in Affinity Help that are not explained there (like introducing “hintline” as a key feature at the beginning, without explaining it later or directly)

• complete explanations (for example the “Interface Visual Reference” is really very incomplete)

• adequate care (for example: translation)