Light mode UI design

[Guest]

Affinity's light mode UI — in the document setup — has been giving me a headache for months. When you set proportional dimensions, the icon disappears, or becomes so light that you can't see it. And the anchor/rescale active states are reversed. When you chose rescale, the rescale option is greyed out and the anchor option turns white. Which is also wrong. I mentioned this to support months ago, but nothing came of it. Just pointing it out again because it's become highly annoying and time-consuming. 

The attached screenshot is what it looks like when you set proportional resizing and rescaling. Looking at it, you wouldn't have a clue. 

[Pšenda]

Try setting User Interface options in Preferences

https://affinity.help/designer2/English.lproj/pages/Workspace/preferences.html

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

Try setting User Interface options in Preferences

https://affinity.help/designer2/English.lproj/pages/Workspace/preferences.html

Do you mean why don't I just work in dark mode?... I prefer working in light mode. :-)

[Pšenda]

Background Grey Level, Artboard Background Grey Level, Text Contrast, UI Brightness, UI Contrast? 

[Guest]

Nope, adjusting those levels doesn't fix the issue. I believe it's just a bug/oversight.

[bbrother]

4 hours ago, Max Sheridan said:

Affinity's light mode UI — in the document setup — has been giving me a headache for months. When you set proportional dimensions, the icon disappears, or becomes so light that you can't see it.

Welcome on the forum @Max Sheridan,

These are known issues with many user complaints. Reported often to bring attention to it many times but without response from Serif.

This is cuased mainly by:

• using the wrong shades of gray for the UI frame,
• using wrong colors for control elements, icons and their states (active, hovered, disabled)
• overal poor contrast that on one hand results with blending some elements with the App frame and on the other makes some elements standing out to much wich is not good for the eyes and downgrades the overal feeling when working with Ui designed like that.

3 hours ago, Pšenda said:

Try setting User Interface options in Preferences

Changing UI settings like: 

• Background Grey Level
• UI Brightness
• UI Contrast

Thist doesn't help much and even does more harm than good. When you adjust the contrast, while you may notice a slight improvement in the contrast between icons vs application frame but on the other side the contrast between other elements will start to bee to disruptive for the eye despite it was no problem with it before the adjustments.

@Pšenda as an experienced user, you should already know this.🤔

[Guest]

Thanks @bbrother. I just assumed they'd have fixed it by now with an update. Why don't they? It's so basic.

[bbrother]

7 minutes ago, Max Sheridan said:

Why don't they? It's so basic

1. They have their hands full due to many bugs in their applications.
2. They don't take UI issues seriously even though they are just as important as those with the code. 

I think those are the casues why it wasn't fixed yet.

[Guest]

Well, I hope they manage.

[Pšenda]

1 hour ago, bbrother said:

as an experienced user, you should already know this.🤔

As an experienced user, of course I use Dark UI, where the mentioned problem is not there - and therefore I do not need to set the contrast in Preferences.

 

 

P.S. I switched to Light UI for testing, and no problem either.

  

Edited March 7, 2024 by Pšenda

[Pšenda]

2 hours ago, bbrother said:

but on the other side you contrast between other elements will start to bee to disruptive for the eye despite it was no problem with it before the adjustments.

This is also where my question was headed, if the OP had made the display/contrast settings worse. As you can see in my previous post - there is no problem with basic settings.

[Guest]

@Pšenda You are obviously an experienced user. But I still don't get the same results on my Mac. That link icon is hardly visible no matter how I tweak the contrast.

[bbrother]

19 minutes ago, Max Sheridan said:

@Pšenda You are obviously an experienced user. But I still don't get the same results on my Mac. That link icon is hardly visible no matter how I tweak the contrast.

Maybe because he didn't noticed from your screenshot that youre using MacOS while showing by himself screenshots from Windows.

 

 

[thomaso]

5 hours ago, Max Sheridan said:

And the anchor/rescale active states are reversed. When you chose rescale, the rescale option is greyed out and the anchor option turns white. Which is also wrong.

This appears to be a misunderstanding. In the light UI parent UI items like tab titles (e.g. "Dimensions", "Pages", "Transform") are darkened if inactive while buttons and definite settings (e.g. "Rescale", "Move Tool", "Persona", "Snapping", "Current Page", "Stroke Cap") are darkened if active.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, thomaso said:

This appears to be a misunderstanding. In the light UI parent UI items like tab titles (e.g. "Dimensions", "Pages", "Transform") are darkened if inactive while buttons and definite settings (e.g. "Rescale", "Move Tool", "Persona", "Snapping", "Current Page", "Stroke Cap") are darkened if active.

Thank you, @thomaso, for your expertise (and lively text styling). I was afraid of entering this forum, and now bid you all adieu.

[Patrick Connor]

I am locking this thread and will hide it soon. It is NOT what we want to see when users come with a genuine well explained problem.

The interactions in this thread have resulted in a new user leaving the forums. Saying they should be using other settings, or showing V1 is unaffected (the users screenshot shows they are affected in V2) or that "Serif don't care so why say anything" miss the point that there is a simple icon issue that needs addressing in Designer on Mac.

Please do not reply like this, especially not to new users.