Customise Toolbar - add 'export to PDF' option, and a general rant about the interface

[Wosven]

21 hours ago, R C-R said:

Every one of those toolbar items also needs a name in every supported language

Text is only needed when you begin with an app, but happen a moment when you want smaller text or no text at all once you know your icons. And there's always the tooltip/caption to give the name of an icon when it's not visible and you forget its name/usage.

 

20 hours ago, R C-R said:

would have to add what could be hundreds of new icon assets (for up to 4 different UI display modes)

Time to improve the export panel for people that don't us it for web design but want options to export icons/designs with different backgrounds or colors using general adjustement layers, etc. For now it's difficult to export different versions of a design without dupplication of everything (but that's not the topic).

 

21 hours ago, R C-R said:

reasonably user friendly way provided to choose which ones to add.

(About being able to add custom buttons, with custom icons: not something I would think of, or need if there are buttons for each action, and possibilities to hide/show each one of them, depending of the context.)
Some XML file can be used as in other app, linking to some icons in a specific folder, it can be created at installation but empty, and recommendations for people that don't understand what they are doing to not do it, as usual. Standard fallbacks if images are missing or links/names are erroned. An example file and a list of possibilities would be needed too.

Adding icons today is perhaps different than when we did skins and icons for apps 25(?) years ago, but I doubt it's drastically different, since apps keep on using those.

 

For now they are working on features, and they'll have to add more buttons and options, at some point they'll need to reorganize the UI. Perhaps add some option about text size in the UI and contrast too (but the new Bêta solved to contrast problem of the previous one). Some have extra space in the UI on a larger screen, but on small screen (like my tablet-laptop when I'm not home), a smaller UI would be usefull.

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, MikeW said:

Affinity applications do have toolbars.. Affinity applications do have a limited amount of being customized. All that is being requested (hammered on til death) is that Serif extends that customization that is already in place. This is completely different than rolling in a new feature.

It is not at all clear what is being requested here. The second sentence of the first post (emphasis added) is, "Please allow us to add menu items, such as export to PDF."

But as I am sure you know, there currently is no "export to PDF" menu item, so at least that much could be considered a new feature. It also isn't clear if this part of the request is for a menu item in a submenu of the File > Export menu item, if it should be available in more than one Persona, include its own submenu for quick access to different PDF export options, or what.

Aside from that, the "such as" & several other comments in this topic suggest that some users see this request as asking for adding any menu item to the toolbar, or at least a very large number of them.

So among other things this means adding a substantial number of toolbar icons to the apps, & as I already mentioned, that would involve adding more than one version for most of them. That isn't a new feature but it does mean somebody has to design those icons & make them distinctive enough to avoid confusion with any of the others. Considering there could be dozens of them, including monochrome versions that can't use color for differentiation,   if anyone thinks that would be hard, then try it for yourself.

[firstdefence]

I think its pretty clear what is being requested, at least, I get what @LondonSquirrel wants and why not? shortcutting to often used tools is all part of creating a usable workflow for you, customisation is all about making the app work for you and if that means having an icon on the ribbon menu (for want of a better name) to either the PDF export option or even an icon to particular preset that you use frequently, why not?

I honestly don't think londonsquirrel is asking for anything unusual nor beyond the capabilities of the affinity devs. I'd love to have an export icon on the ribbon menu, if I could have a particular export all the better. But anything that could be linked to and placed at hand would be a nice feature. Making an app yours is like having your desk laid out a particular way, if you were told you could only have it this way I dare bet there'd be a fair few rattles thrown out of the cot lol!

Professional designers and photo editors are all about streamlining and or automating a process and shaving a click here and click there can make all the difference to a tediously repetitive process, anything to make work a more pleasant process.

londonsquirrel really should put a feature request in because I think its a great idea and one that I would welcome, I'd certainly +1 it.

[firstdefence]

4 hours ago, R C-R said:

So among other things this means adding a substantial number of toolbar icons to the apps, & as I already mentioned, that would involve adding more than one version for most of them. That isn't a new feature but it does mean somebody has to design those icons & make them distinctive enough to avoid confusion with any of the others. Considering there could be dozens of them, including monochrome versions that can't use color for differentiation,   if anyone thinks that would be hard, then try it for yourself.

It would be a job for someone, I'd do it, I don't think anyone would think it would be an easy job, but a job well done is never easy, if you approach it with a daunting mentality it will be a daunting job and that will show in the end result, having the right mindset is key producing those icons but it would make people happy, think of all those happy squirrels in London, they'd go nuts 

[kaffeeundsalz]

2 hours ago, firstdefence said:

It would be a job for someone, I'd do it, I don't think anyone would think it would be an easy job

@LondonSquirrel thinks it would be an easy job.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, firstdefence said:

It would be a job for someone, I'd do it, I don't think anyone would think it would be an easy job, but a job well done is never easy, if you approach it with a daunting mentality it will be a daunting job and that will show in the end result, having the right mindset is key producing those icons but it would make people happy, think of all those happy squirrels in London, they'd go nuts 

Adopt whatever mindset you want, but consider that for example, if you want toolbar icons for individual PDF (or other file type) export presets for 'one button' exports, then you or someone else would need to design icons not just for the built-in presets (7 for PDF, 6 for TIFF, & so on) but also for all the custom presets users could create using the More > Manage Presets or Export Persona > Export Options menu.

Assuming you want each of these icons to be distinctive enough to avoid confusion with any of the others, this means the job would involve designing a near infinite number of icons (because for some file formats users can specify custom numeric values for things like DPI, quality, etc.). That is beyond daunting; it is just about impossible.

Avoiding that means exploring alternatives like using the 'icon and text' toolbar option or customizable tooltip popups, or allowing users to design their own icons, maybe via some kind of XML file or whatever, but that means adding that function to the apps, hopefully with some kind of user friendly UI manager.

The bottom line is if one considers all of these things, it should be obvious that it would indeed be quite hard to add this capability to the apps.

[Move Along People]

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[R C-R]

13 minutes ago, haakoo said:

Why the overthinking in this thread?

Basically, it is because different people want different things, for example 'one button' exporting that avoid the need to set any options in a separate window, or maybe this:

21 minutes ago, haakoo said:

Also create a link to the export persona on this menu/button for more the comprehensive options.

I am not quite sure what you mean but if it is access to all the options in the 3 primary Export Persona panels (the two tab Export Options panel & its popup 'burger' menu functions, the Slices panel & all its myriad options, & the Layers panel) without actually switching to the Export Persona, then wouldn't that require opening some entirely new (& probably quite crowded) dropdown menu or modal dialog interface window that is not currently built into the apps?

If instead you mean a less crowded interface with just some of those options, I think that still would require adding a new interface element & there remains the issue of deciding which options should be included & who gets to decide that.

It all comes down to what the developers have said many times in these forums, that what end users think should be easy to add to the apps usually is far more difficult & complex than they think.

[Move Along People]

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[Aaron Martin]

6 minutes ago, haakoo said:

As you see there's no crowding happening,hey even space to spare

Im sorry. Was that sarcasm or your actual preference?

[Move Along People]

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[v_kyr]

Well all things mentioned so far (free toolbar customizations, dynamic right-click context menus, export more button changes etc.) could of course be implemented, or be adapted in the one or other way, though all of that would need work, some additional resources and time to be done in an overall consistent manner across the app line. - Further as always you can't please everyone here, since people might have different demands and priorities.

Personally if I would have to implement some sort of such free customizable "just click a custom defined button or associated entry" solution, I would probably go a complete other route, in order to give people some of those individual comfort capabilities. I would maybe offer instead some scrolling list access panel similar to how the adding custom assets and styles panels work, where the users then can add their own named/text (button sized) image entry and an corresponding choosen associated command (the commands here could resemble what the keyboard prefs. settings offers). The user should there in that panel then be able to create/remove such clickable/selectable custom user command associations. - This way the toolbar space wouldn't be cramped over with user defined buttons I might need internally for any future to come app features. Further I don't need to deal with creating preexisting icons and the like since that lies in the users resposibility, he uses what he likes to have as an image there and he also names things (entries) the way he likes to have there for the associations.

Beside being much more flexible for the user to overall setup, the whole might also be easier to be offered among the app line, including building an iOS/iPad compatible äquivalent.

[Move Along People]

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[R C-R]

2 hours ago, haakoo said:

As you see there's no crowding happening,hey even space to spare

OK, but several people have already mentioned that or any similar layout would still not come close to giving them all the customizable options they want, & there have been a number of different suggestions about the best way to do that, including ones that would require considerably more changes to the apps than just adding a different layout.

For that matter, there isn't even much agreement about which export formats are the most commonly used ones or which look & feel is the best & most consistent one for all the Studio panels.

[v_kyr]

2 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Personally if I would have to implement some sort of such free customizable "just click a custom defined button or associated entry" solution, I would probably go a complete other route, in order to give people some of those individual comfort capabilities. I would maybe offer instead some scrolling list access panel similar to how the adding custom assets and styles panels work, where the users then can add their own named/text (button sized) image entry and an corresponding choosen associated command (the commands here could resemble what the keyboard prefs. settings offers). The user should there in that panel then be able to create/remove such clickable/selectable custom user command associations.
...

Just to visualize what I meant above with a custom user commands panel here, a click or double click etc. would perform the user setup and assiciated command action then ...

[Pšenda]

5 hours ago, v_kyr said:

I would probably go a complete other route,

Not that I disagree with you. But can you imagine what confusion it will be for inexperienced users? Already today, many turn on gray icons in the preferences, and then wonder, why the icons are gray!

If there should be more customization for experienced users, I would recommend two application modes - for beginners and for professionals.

[v_kyr]

I think from an overall handling concept it wouldn't be that much different than using an Assets or Styles panels here. Also if one ease there then the image adding and offer to replace an otherwise always default shown one for entries, it shouldn't be difficult to use at all.

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Just to visualize what I meant above with a custom user commands panel here, a click or double click etc. would perform the user setup and assiciated command action then ...

So would the two quick export access items open a dialog window with the associated export options or what?

Whatever it would do, it is far from the initial request for more extensive toolbar item customization options, so it is yet another example of how many different ideas different users have about various ways to customize the Affinity apps.

[v_kyr]

59 minutes ago, R C-R said:

So would the two quick export access items open a dialog window with the associated export options or what?

If you look at the first above post you will note, that I assumed there, that the Affinity dev team then maybe want to reuse the command associations they used and offer for the keyboard customization prefs stuff. However, they can add what they want to offer there as user reusable association commands.

[R C-R]

5 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

If you look at the first above post you will note, that I assumed there, that the Affinity dev team then maybe want to reuse the command associations they used and offer for the keyboard customization prefs stuff.

I am not sure what you mean by this. There is no command or keyboard shortcut for exporting to directly PDF or SVG, just the File > Export menu item & its keyboard shortcut & the Export Persona.

[v_kyr]

Then as far as people really have a demand for those export things, they (Affinity devs) would have to add some direct call commands for the specific export file format selection purposes.