MUCH NEEDED Symbols Feature

[Jonathan A.]

The ONLY indication that you are/aren't syncing changes being made to your document is by being sure to look over at the sync button every few seconds to be sure you are in the right mode for the changes that are being made. This has been problematic for me since day 1 because I quite often forget which mode I am in before making drastic changes to my document, and then having to undo a large amount of work, only to do it all again after setting the sync status to the appropriate mode.

I believe a great feature would be to have the mouse cursor change to a orange color as a clear "in-your-face" indicator that, "Hey, you are not in 'sync mode!'". You simply will not be able to miss this indicator, as that very same mouse cursor is being used to make the changes in the first place and so you are always looking directly at it. Maybe even have the cursor flash between white and orange as a way to raise your attention. I only suggest the flashing feature because what might often happen is you will simply get used to the cursor being orange while not in sync mode, and so then you might not even be on alert because the orange color has become the norm to your brain.

But just experiment with different things to see what works best for the community. Thanks.

[Gripsholm Lion]

One of the principles of accessibility is that UI elements and cursors should not flash or blink.

[Old Bruce]

And here on Mac OS 12.7.4 the on/off status of the Sync button is unchanging. We have no idea if it is enabled or not. A massive failure that needs to be fixed.

[Jonathan A.]

7 minutes ago, GripsholmLion said:

One of the principles of accessibility is that UI elements and cursors should not flash or blink.

Good thing I'm no UI expert; simply a homosapien suggesting features and tweaks. :]

But maybe changing the cursor color and/or attaching an image of the symbols icon to the bottom of the cursor would still seem to work, no?

Edited March 20, 2024 by Jonathan A.

[loukash]

1 hour ago, Jonathan A. said:

The ONLY indication that you are/aren't syncing changes being made to your document is by being sure to look over at the sync button every few seconds to be sure you are in the right mode for the changes that are being made.

There is also the orange vertical bar in the Layers panel which indicates fully synced (solid) or partially synced (dashed) objects.
But an additional indicator in the Layers would be useful.
There already is one in APh for the Linked Layers which is essentially the same underlying technology as ADe's Symbols.

Also, you can actually link/sync and unlink/unsync individual Symbol attributes by switching over to APh and using the Links panel to finetune your individual symbol child objects. It works.

[Bryan Rieger]

Just now, loukash said:

There is also the orange vertical bar in the Layers panel which indicates fully synced (solid) or partially synced (dashed) objects.

I had absolutely no idea what that orange bar meant?! So many UI/UX issues in the Affinity apps are so opaque and obtuse.

Please Serif, clean up the UX/UI issues in v2 before adding even more confusion.

[Jonathan A.]

15 minutes ago, loukash said:

There is also the orange vertical bar in the Layers panel which indicates fully synced (solid) or partially synced (dashed) objects.
But an additional indicator in the Layers would be useful.
There already is one in APh for the Linked Layers which is essentially the same underlying technology as ADe's Symbols.

Also, you can actually link/sync and unlink/unsync individual Symbol attributes by switching over to APh and using the Links panel to finetune your individual symbol child objects. It works.

Sounds like a lot when all I want is to see what mode I am in while actively screwing up my image assets. If it is right there in my face (i.e., the EXACT cursor being used to screw up my vectors and image assets letting me know), then I can say, "Oh, s***, let me stop this process IMMEDIATELY by either pressing the undo button. If the left mouse button is actively pressed down and screwing up my work, I can even just press the ESC key to cancel what I am doing to screw up my work.

Yes, there is an indicator in the layers panel, but again, that is not too different from the sync button: You only notice the indication while actually looking directly at it. This is why I still screw up and don't notice until some time after making a bunch of changes to my work.

It should be NO problem for them to implement such a simple feature, as they already do this very thing (changing the cursor appearance) when using the different available tools, such as the pen tool, node tool, gradient tool, etc.

Edited March 20, 2024 by Jonathan A.

[loukash]

6 hours ago, Jonathan A. said:

all I want is to see what mode I am in while actively screwing up my image assets.

Yes, the sync status of a symbol object definitely needs a better indicator. I fully agree with you.

6 hours ago, Jonathan A. said:

It should be NO problem for them to implement such a simple feature, as they already do this very thing (changing the cursor appearance) when using the different available tools, such as the pen tool, node tool, gradient tool, etc.

The major difference here being that symbols are not a tool.

In other words, the Affinity UI has quite some room for improvement, but they already got the basic concepts right. No need to "screw them up" as well (to use your own terms )

[loukash]

6 hours ago, Bryan Rieger said:

I had absolutely no idea what that orange bar meant?! So many UI/UX issues in the Affinity apps are so opaque and obtuse.

https://affinity.help/designer2/en-US.lproj/pages/SymbolsAssets/symbols.html

It's documented there.

[Dampsquid]

8 hours ago, Bryan Rieger said:

I had absolutely no idea what that orange bar meant?! So many UI/UX issues in the Affinity apps are so opaque and obtuse.

Please Serif, clean up the UX/UI issues in v2 before adding even more confusion.

+1 on this. v2 was a backward step in many regards. Often I have to toggle a UI element just to be sure which way it's set... link icon in transform panel for example, at a glance it's not easy to tell whether it's on or off. So annoying.

[Pšenda]

On 3/20/2024 at 11:40 PM, Dampsquid said:

v2 was a backward step in many regards.

Marking symbols and their synchronization using an orange bar was already in version 1.