My greatest annoyance using Affinity Designer 2: The Aspect Ratio Lock Icon

[mikeswarts]

I really, really like Affinity software, but I do make a lot of errors because of this little icon, which I can barely understand when I'm looking directly at it. I end up unintentionally changing the aspect ratio of elements (or not), blissfully ignorant until I've already made a bunch of additional changes and I no longer remember what the correct aspect ratio was supposed to have been.

Can you please make the visual cue *significantly* more obvious?

Update

I've made so many mistakes in V2 and I couldn't remember how V1 even looked, so I looked it up. The old indicator was an embarrassment of riches. No wonder I'm so mistake-prone using V2!

 

 

[v_kyr]

+1 - I agree, the new ones in V2 are visually much more difficult to distinguish here, especially under high resolution screens!

[_Th]

4 hours ago, mikeswarts said:

The old indicator was an embarrassment of riches

Well said. This is quite a bit of UI regression, IMHO.

[Ash]

I had meant to say we have updated this in 2.1 (in beta currently) to make the locked state much clearer. You can join the beta program here if you want to take a look.

 

[Hilltop]

Looks better but not really a lot. I still have to think for a second what the icon means. The padlock was much better. The question is also, why use the padlock icon in the layers panel and something else elsewhere? Consistency in the use of symbols is essential to make the app feel intuitive.  

[thomaso]

49 minutes ago, Hilltop said:

The question is also, why use the padlock icon in the layers panel and something else elsewhere?

There are 2 different features: lock versus link. AND there is inconsistent use of the icons: For instance the "Spread Properties…" / "Spread Setup…" use the padlock icon for the page dimensions but with the feature of the link icon and the link icon for margin and bleed – whereas the "New Document…" dialog window offers neither lock nor link for the page aspect ratio –, while "Lock Children" has a checkbox instead of an icon and prefers to be hidden off the screen.

It is an issue since versions and years, e.g.:

[Hilltop]

40 minutes ago, thomaso said:

There are 2 different features: lock versus link. 

You're right, of course. Yet, a padlock in the Transform dialog instantly informs the user that the dimensions are linked and locked.

[thomaso]

2 minutes ago, Hilltop said:

Yet, a padlock in the Transform dialog instantly informs the user that the dimensions are linked and locked.

Are they indeed locked? I assume they are linked only … still may get modified. It gets tricky with the lock icon in the Layers panel and in the Colours panel, too, which both leave space for interpretation of their function.

I agree with the issue in the visual design of the link icons … while this appears to meet the discussion about contrast in the entire UI, affecting many button icons.

[Hilltop]

20 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Are they indeed locked? I assume they are linked only … still may get modified.

I already agreed with you, the dimensions are linked and not locked. However, a padlock would indicate that the aspect ratio is locked.

[MikeTO]

I'm satisfied with this change in 2.1 - I can now tell at a glance whether the fields are linked. I don't care what the icon is as long as I can tell at a glance and don't have to think about it. I think you'll find this is no longer an issue in 2.1.

[_Th]

Having read through this, the linked icon does in fact make sense vs. the locked icon. And the change in 2.1 does make it much more clear, although I wouldn't mind the linked being a bit more 'bold'.

[woefi]

Have to say, the linked chain icon is definitely an improvement in the latest 2.1 beta. 

And if you just look at it side by side it's clear what it means. The thing is, in real life you will never see it side by side, so you have to judge each icon on its own.

Only seeing the "loose" chain, I sometimes have to think twice what the current state is.

 

My tiny suggestion would be a reminiscent to the old classic MacOS times, where those loose chains would have tiny diagonal lines, indicating that there is a member missing.

A little bit like that:

[Pšenda]

2 hours ago, Hilltop said:

However, a padlock would indicate that the aspect ratio is locked.

But the "aspect ratio" value is not given here at all, so the lock placed here would be very indirectly/derivatively related to it. If only the values of the dimension are listed here, then only the icon that indicates the relationship between these two values has meaning and logic - i.e. that when one value changes, the other value changes as well. The lock would indicate, as thomaso correctly writes, that these values are protected from change (something like the lock in the Layers panel should do properly, and unfortunately it doesn't - which is just proof that the lock symbol is often used in the wrong context here).

[Pšenda]

46 minutes ago, woefi said:

Only seeing the "loose" chain, I sometimes have to think twice what the current state is.

Personally, I think the problem is trying to display a "broken" chain, whose icon is complicated and incomprehensible.
If I translate it into real life, if you want to connect/link something - you use a chain. If you then want to disconnect/unlink it, you will remove the chain, not break it.

[thomaso]

21 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

But the "aspect ratio" value is not given here at all, so the lock placed here would be very indirectly/derivatively related to it.

In my impression any pair of values has a certain aspect ratio – regardless of their size. For instance, to a achieve an aspect ratio for a certain object you can type the wanted ratio while the lock is opened, then click the lock and type in one of the two fields the desired dimension. With 'enter' or 'tab' Affinity auto-calculates the other value + the object gets set in the wanted size AND the wanted aspect ratio. – Different to to the File > "New…" dialog, where this option simply does not exist, for whatever reason.

[Pšenda]

54 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Different to to the File > "New…" dialog, where this option simply does not exist, for whatever reason.

I agree - when creating a new document, it would be useful not only to "preserve" the ratio by tying the values for the definition of the document size, but also the possibility of directly entering the aspect ratio value - so that the user does not have to constantly recalculate it. Similar to how it can be defined with the Crop Tool.

[mikeswarts]

Yep, thanks guys! So much better!

[vonBusing]

I've been confused with the locked proportion icon since the v2 introduction. With v2.1, I am still confused. It is very hard to tell what the icon is actually showing, so it's a 50% chance of fail each time. Maybe the contrast is too poor:
 

[PaulEC]

33 minutes ago, vonBusing said:

Maybe the contrast is too poor

I would say that you definitely need to adjust the contrast!

[vonBusing]

I use the Default OS contrast, which is light in the day and dark in the evening, all in default settings. The contrast is somewhat better in dark mode, but it could be expected to be acceptable for fairly normal eyes with these settings, in both modes. Enabling high UI contrast did not change the contrast of the actual icon.

[PaulEC]

Your dialogue looks slightly different to mine, so I'm assuming that you're on a Mac. The best I can suggest is playing with the various sliders to try to get it looking better. It might be worth checking/adjusting the settings on your monitor as well.

[Old Bruce]

2 hours ago, vonBusing said:

It is very hard to tell what the icon is actually showing, so it's a 50% chance of fail each time. Maybe the contrast is too poor:

This problem is one of many similar problems with the Default settings for the Light User Interface. This lack of contrast is in my opinion a major failure. 

1 hour ago, PaulEC said:

you definitely need to adjust the contrast!

Affinity definitely needs to fix the contrast for the User Interface.

[PaulEC]

24 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Affinity definitely needs to fix the contrast for the User Interface.

You're right, but in the meantime the only option is to adjust it, as best you can, yourself! (On my monitors the default settings do look pretty awful!) 😒

[Old Bruce]

5 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

On my monitors at least the default settings look pretty awful!

Curious as to what you see on Widows when you modify a Preset from the New document window. Here on Mac OS 11.7 I get no sign that there are options to save as or overwrite the preset.

[vonBusing]

Apparently the icon contrast is not consistent. While it is perfectly OK in the Transform panel in light UI:
 

It fails in the Document setup dialogue box (see previous post) .