One year later and still no changes to the frustrating UI...

[bruno7]

Hi, guys,

It's been a year and some updates along the way but still no changes to the UI. No one at Affinity apparently listens...

I don't know how about you but I am used to work in the light UI. I bought the Suite 2 basically the day it went live. And in the past year I only used it like five times. I still cannot get over the horrible interface changes. OK, I could probably live with ugly and childish icons. I could probably (but most likely not) get over the New Document window and Export window with its totally useless first page preview which takes ages to generate.

But the absolute lack of decent contrast and the incomprehensible change from nice blue accents towards dark shades of grey makes the light interface unusable for me. I don't want to use the dark one (which is still better in the old versions) so for now I will stick to Version 1 for as long as I can.

Check the screenshots - how am I supposed to read the names of the layers when they're nearly invisible, for example?

I just thought this UI mess would be addressed during the last year...


D.

 

[R C-R]

There have been complaints about the UI contrast problems almost since the very first release of AD for Macs, so it is not just over the last year that nothing has been done to eliminate them.

Why is anybody's guess.

[Pšenda]

4 hours ago, bruno7 said:

Check the screenshots - how am I supposed to read the names of the layers when they're nearly invisible, for example?

These are not the "names" of the layers, i.e. the user-created naming, designation and description of the layers, but only their default description of the layer type (Image, Group, Curve,...), which can also be seen from the icon indicating the layer type. If you enter your own "naming" of the layer, it will be displayed in black, which distinguishes the user name of the layer from the default designation, which disappears after entering the layer name.

[walt.farrell]

21 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

If you enter your own "naming" of the layer, it will be displayed in black,

Like QR backup in the first screenshot.

[Pšenda]

5 hours ago, bruno7 said:

so for now I will stick to Version 1 for as long as I can.

Jen pro zajímavost - všiml jsem si, že ve verzi 2 hodně využíváte vektorový Warp. Čím ho nahrazujete ve verzi 1?

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, Pšenda said:

These are not the "names" of the layers, i.e. the user-created naming, designation and description of the layers, but only their default description of the layer type (Image, Group, Curve,...), which can also be seen from the icon indicating the layer type.

True, but what value is there in making the contrast between that layer type text & its background so small that it becomes so annoyingly difficult to read? As it is, if nothing else it makes it easy to overlook things like the difference between unnamed Curve & Curves layers.

[bruno7]

7 hours ago, Pšenda said:

Jen pro zajímavost - všiml jsem si, že ve verzi 2 hodně využíváte vektorový Warp. Čím ho nahrazujete ve verzi 1?

No - upřímně, ten vektorový Warp byl jediný důvod, proč jsem se na chvíli vrátil k verzi 2. Mám tam nějaké zrcadlení a průhlednost a nebyl jsem spokojen, jak vypadal v tisku ten QR kód v PNG v případě použití Perspektivy ve Photu. To je vlastně odpověď na vaši otázku - musím použít Perspektivu u PNG, s vektorem v tomto případě ve verzi 1 nic podobného nedokážu.

Tak jsem QR převedl na vektor (což mi michodem taky dost chybí u Affinity - musel jsem použít Inkscape), a zkusil to pomocí Warpu. Je to lepší, ale ta průhlednost mi stejně trochu v tisku nesedí. Musel jsem použít bílý podklad pod kódy, bez něj to nešlo. Přiznám se, že s průhledností moc nepracuji, takže jsem to možná celé pojal špatně. 😉

Ale už je hotovo - budu doufat, že to v tiskárně vyjde dobře. 

 

D.

 

 

Edited November 21, 2023 by bruno7

[bruno7]

6 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Like QR backup in the first screenshot.

Well, this makes sense on one hand. On the other hand - who names Text Layers, for example? I don't. I prefer to see the actual text within the layers panel - which I am nearly unable to read as it is. 
 

I also strongly believe - and I'm not a UI expert - that when using tabs (anywhere, be it file manager, web browser, or panels like this) the background of the selected tab should have the same colour as the tab itself. See Version 1. If it was this way in Version 2 and if different colours were used for the layer names (descriptions) we wouldn't have legibility problems. 

Yeah, if only...

[Pšenda]

4 hours ago, bruno7 said:

the background of the selected tab should have the same colour as the tab itself.

The background of active/selected tabs is the same color as the panel.

 

4 hours ago, bruno7 said:

Well, this makes sense on one hand.

Yes, it makes sense - personally, I am very grateful for highlighting the layers that are important to me (that's why I also named them). I don't need to be bothered by thousands of meaningless Curve labels - I can see the layer type on the layer icon.
However, I can imagine that the resolution would be made less "drastic" (from the point of view of readability), i.e. Bold vs Regular/Italic, less difference in contrast, etc.

P.S. I'm using a dark interface, and I have no problem with readability at all.

Edited November 21, 2023 by Pšenda

[bruno7]

1 hour ago, Pšenda said:

The background of active/selected tabs is the same color as the panel.

 

Yes, it makes sense - personally, I am very grateful for highlighting the layers that are important to me (that's why I also named them). I don't need to be bothered by thousands of meaningless Curve labels - I can see the layer type on the layer icon.
However, I can imagine that the resolution would be made less "drastic" (from the point of view of readability), i.e. Bold vs Regular/Italic, less difference in contrast, etc.

P.S. I'm using a dark interface, and I have no problem with readability at all.

My bad - by the same background I meant also the background of the Layer Panel. 

I get the point of naming the important layers. I will certainly try to do better with that.

But it doesn't solve the problem with the overall legibility. 

I hope the Affinity guys are already sitting on it and finding a way. 😉

[anto]

40 minutes ago, bruno7 said:

I hope the Affinity guys are already sitting on it and finding a way. 😉

Way already exist. This is Blender.

It would be nice if developers allowed users to choose the color they want.

 

 

 

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, Pšenda said:

P.S. I'm using a dark interface, and I have no problem with readability at all.

So can you easily tell at a quick glance if an unnamed layer is a Curves layer or a Curve layer? 

[Pšenda]

1 minute ago, R C-R said:

So can you easily tell at a quick glance if an unnamed layer is a Curves layer or a Curve layer? 

It's not important for me at all, because otherwise I would name the given layer, but yes - I have no problem reading the Curve and Curves text at all.
Of course, it's a bit of a shame that the layer type icons are identical, but personally I don't really care about the difference between Curve and Curves, I usually don't merge curves.

[R C-R]

4 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

It's not important for me at all, because otherwise I would name the given layer, but yes - I have no problem reading the Curve and Curves text at all.

It is hard for me to tell the difference on my 27" iMac & it is important to me to be able to read the layer type of any unnamed layers. Besides, if it was not important to at least some of us, why show any text at all?

All many of us are asking for is higher contrast between UI items & their backgrounds. It does not seem to be a big ask, but the developers have effectively ignored that for many years now, & it is quite frustrating!

[Pšenda]

34 minutes ago, R C-R said:

All many of us are asking for is higher contrast between UI items & their backgrounds. It does not seem to be a big ask, but the developers have effectively ignored that for many years now

I myself was surprised after the release of version 2 that despite all the complaints and requests to improve the readability of the interface (I myself wrote requests to improve the resolution of selected/pressed buttons), the developers went in the opposite direction, that is, by reducing the contrast. So they don't ignore these problems, they just might have misunderstood them 🙂

[loukash]

2 hours ago, Pšenda said:

So they don't ignore these problems, they just might have misunderstood them 🙂

As I have recently noted elsewhere, my uneducated impression is that the Serif UI team must be massively understaffed.

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, Pšenda said:

So they don't ignore these problems, they just might have misunderstood them 🙂

I think it is extremely unlikely that they have in any way misunderstood the contrast problem that is so frequently complained about, much less to the extent that they have made it progressively worse in the latest versions.

There just seems to be a weird obsession with making the UI so unobtrusive & non-distracting that usability suffers. Unfortunately, that seems to be a trend for other companies as well, like with Apple's obsession with hiding things until they are rolled over, something else Affinity does, like in the Open > Recents window where the ⊗ & pin icon for unpinned items are hidden until you roll over the item; & in the layers menu where the lock button is hidden for unlocked items.

It is almost as if they want to make the UI harder to use than it needs to be! 😠

[R C-R]

7 minutes ago, loukash said:

As I have recently noted elsewhere, my uneducated impression is that the Serif UI team must be massively understaffed.

Understaffed or not, there is no good explanation for why the contrast issue has only gotten worse. Besides, long a go they made a major effort to add a light UI option to the apps, & since then have added things like a UI Contrast preference that addresses but does not actually fix this problem. 

[loukash]

7 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Apple's obsession with hiding things until they are rolled over

This drives me NUTS! WTF are they smoking in Cupertino? (And why can't I smoke some of it as well?! )

Edited November 21, 2023 by loukash
(Disclosure: I don't actually smoke at all… ;)

[R C-R]

5 minutes ago, loukash said:

This drives me NUTS!

At Apple, I think it was driven by Jonathan Ivy's never ending quest for the absolute minimum of clutter obtainable in UI designs for all types of devices, reinforced by Steve Jobs' well known dislike for buttons & offering so many choices that he thought it would unnecessarily confuse users.

Basically, the "less is more" mantra taken to absurd levels, a triumph of valuing style over function.

[lacerto]

10 hours ago, R C-R said:

that seems to be a trend for other companies as well, like with Apple's obsession with hiding things until they are rolled over

When I recently cleaned my MacBook Air and clean-installed Ventura, then upgraded to Sonoma, I noticed that when using Apple Magic Mouse (which effectively also hides mouse buttons, and enables "secondary" button only by a non-default user choice), auto-exposing scroll bars on mouse-over event does not work!

Fortunately they still offer "always on" option for having these oh so highly disturbing (very narrow and dimmed) UI elements visible as part of the (still visible) window contours!

On the other hand, that tendency seems to be balanced by offering title bars that are a kind of a UI joke. There is so much crammed activity on modern app title bars (especially on Windows), that there is barely room for the title itself, or grabbing and moving the window (some apps allow doing that by a way of grabbing a control that exists there, some by grabbing a random narrow empty spots that exist between these controls)... 

Both these tendencies (excessive minimalism and excessive clutter) cause usability issues, but at the same time, also appear to be work of UI "specialists" whose job it is to develop UI, rethink and improve the "user experience", and they seem to have the final word. 

Yes yes: grumpy old guys complaining because of bad eyesight and shaky hands not willing to learn any new things 🙂 

[loukash]

4 hours ago, lacerto said:

grumpy old guys complaining because of bad eyesight and shaky hands not willing to learn any new things

Hey, in certain parts of the world, we're about to become the majority on the population pyramid!

4 hours ago, lacerto said:

Fortunately they still offer "always on" option

Ever since Apple introduced those nonsense disappearing scrollbars, this is the first thing I turn on and never look back. And that was in times when I wasn't a "grumpy old man" yet. I think. Hm… 

4 hours ago, lacerto said:

title bars that are a kind of a UI joke

There's a reason I still feel the most comfortable using good ole El Capitan…
If only the 2012 MBP wouldn't feel so slllooowww all of a sudden…?  

[loukash]

On 11/21/2023 at 7:36 AM, bruno7 said:

QR převedl na vektor (což mi michodem taky dost chybí u Affinity

Budeš se asi divit, ale je to tam, ačkoliv očividně "nechtěně". Přečti si můj návod zde: 

Funguje to v jedničce i ve dvojce.
Mezitím jsem zjistil, že to lze převést i jednodušeji bez meziukládání do PNG: vezmeš Flood Select tool, vybereš vše černé, přidáš nový Pixel Layer a vyplníš ho. Z toho pak vytvoříš vektorlajny dle návodu výše.

[loukash]

21 hours ago, R C-R said:

Understaffed or not

Obviously yes:
affinity.serif.com/careers/senior-software-engineer-ui

Now, that's actually Good News™!

[jmwellborn]

@loukash  even better news - maybe this new hire can do something about the depressing design of the tools in V2.